me on a course of specialist sessions with a psychiatric counsellor in an effort to sort out my problems, and that if I ever crossed the line again, that would be it. He’d make sure I was drummed out of the force.
It was years before I found out what had actually happened. Apparently, Dougie had talked to my boss at CO10, Captain Bob, who’d initially wanted to sack me but who’d eventually been persuaded by Dougie to give me a second chance. The two of them had then put the word out among London’s bigger underworld players that if the contract was carried out there’d be serious repercussions from the police, not only against Slade himself, but against all the capital’s organized criminals. It was all bluster, of course, but it must have done the trick because there was never any comeback from Jason Slade or any of his cronies, although the last I heard Slade was still running the Essex drugs scene, and sticking two fingers up at the authorities.
But the relationship between Dougie and me became strained after the Slade case, and although I worked hard to pay my debt to him by attending all my counselling sessions, and keeping as much on the straight and narrow as possible (and being largely successful at it too), eventually I came to accept that it was never going to be the same again, which was one of the reasons I ended up moving full-time to CO10.
I still missed Dougie and the old crowd at Holborn nick, though, and now and again, particularly when things weren’t going well in my life, I turned up at the Fox and Hounds, the pub round the corner where we used to drink. I needed some of the old camaraderie that night, so, after spending way too much time sitting at home trying to work out how I was going to get out of this latest situation, I took a round-about walk to the Fox and Hounds, stopping only to throw the gun I’d used that day – now dismantled and disinfected, missing the firing pin, and wrapped in several layers of cloth – in an overflowing skip on the way.
It was just after half past six when I stepped inside my old haunt for the first time in far too long. The pub was busy, but I recognized a few familiar faces in the crowd gathered round the bar, although fewer than I’d been hoping for. Dougie was there, of course, but then he’d always enjoyed a drink. He was talking to a group of about half a dozen people, and I was pleased to see that it included Simon Tilley, who’d joined Holborn CID in the same year as me, and who was one of the few people I’d stayed in touch with. They were all laughing and joking, and there was that feeling of camaraderie that I’d been missing for most of the last few years.
The problem with working undercover is you don’t get much of an opportunity to build relationships, either with colleagues or socially. You spend so much time living a lie that you begin to forget who you really are and what makes you tick. It was close to a year since I’d had a girlfriend, nearer five since there’d been anyone serious. Sometimes I thought about quitting undercover work and going back into CID, or maybe putting in to join Dougie MacLeod’s murder investigation team. But I knew I’d get bored if I did, because I’d miss the buzz that undercover work provided.
I reminded myself of that as I bought a drink at the bar and sauntered over towards the mêlée of coppers.
Simon spotted me straight away, coming over pint in hand and putting a friendly arm on my shoulder. ‘Hello, mate, haven’t seen you in a while. What brings you here?’
I told him I was just passing through, and he pulled me over to the main group. I caught Dougie’s eye and he smiled, with just a hint of awkwardness, and put out a hand. ‘Sean. How’s life at CO10?’
I told him things were OK and that we’d had a few decent results recently, pleased he hadn’t heard I was on long-term sick leave.
He nodded, looking distracted. ‘Well, it’s good to see you,’ he said, and I knew then, with real disappointment, that he was bullshitting, that he didn’t think it was good to see me. I wanted to tell him that I’d done all right in