The Takers Read online

  As she passed a few officers who respectfully nodded at her, Singh continued downwards, heading for the freedom of the cold, bitter day and to allow the crisp air to clear her head.

  She was going to catch Sam Pope.

  That was what she’d been tasked to do, and she was damn sure going to do it. Pearce had been right when he’d pointed out the shit she’d been through. She knew that a lot of her male colleagues saw her promotion as nothing more than a tick in the diversity column and she was determined to prove them wrong.

  Yes, she was female.

  Yes, she was Indian.

  Yes, she was attractive.

  But she was damn good at her job too and she’d underline that when she pulled Sam Pope in through the doors she was rapidly approaching, with his hands in cuffs. And after his non-compliance, she wondered if maybe she could do the same to Adrian Pearce, too. Singh pushed open the doors to the reception area and marched past the reception desk, shaking her head in pity as the young officer sat patiently in front of a distressed man, tears streaming down his face as he berated him.

  ‘Please,’ the man cried, his fist clenched. ‘They have my girl and no one will help me.’

  Singh could smell the booze emanating from the man from a few yards away and she strode with purpose towards him.

  ‘Excuse me,’ she said firmly. ‘But unless you have a real problem, the only one here is you. Kindly leave so this man can do his job.’

  The young officer smiled thankfully as the man turned to her. He was in his mid-forties, white with thinning, wiry blonde hair. His blue eyes were bloodshot, the bags beneath them evidence of a sleepless night. His face was covered in stubble and he looked the picture of someone going through a traumatic experience.

  Judging by the stench of alcohol surrounding him, she imagined it was to do with needing another drink.

  ‘Please,’ the man repeated, his voice cracking with desperation. ‘I don’t know what else to do.’

  Singh shook her head in disappointment, stomping towards the outside world and the chance to regather her thoughts. As she approached the automatic door, she called back to the drunken gentleman.

  ‘Go home, sir,’ she said without looking back. ‘Get a good night’s sleep and stop wasting police time.’

  As the door slid shut behind her, Singh headed towards the Thames, wrapping her arms around her petite frame to shield herself from the bitter cold. Approaching the metal railing, she watched with a sense of victory as the drunk man stumbled out of the station, stuffed his hands in his pockets, and hurried up the road. Singh watched him disappear around the corner, not realising that his desperate pleas were the truth and that he would become more important to her task than she could imagine.

  Chapter Five

  ‘Like I said, that motherfucker wants to step to me, I’ll put him six feet deep.’

  Elmore Riggs flashed his usual grin, the gold tooth gleaming among the pearly whites. His dark skin, courtesy of his Ghanaian family, was covered in faded tattoos, many of them from the gangs he had rolled with during his youth, or the seven years he’d spent behind bars for blinding a man during a gang attack. His hair, tied into thin corn rows, was pulled back into a ponytail, the intricate plaits slapping against his broad back.

  His body was well toned, the ink work wrapping over a defined torso that was bare, beyond the gold chain that hung from his neck and the gun holster he still had strapped across his chest. Stood on the top floor of the ‘new’ High Rise, he glared at Sean Wiseman, who shook his head in fury. The makeshift building wasn’t a patch on the old High Rise, which they’d been invited to enjoy by Frank Jackson on a number of occasions. Now, The Gent was dead and Riggs had found a new location.

  Sure, it wasn’t elegant, nor did it have a concierge. It was an abandoned office, with enough rooms for him to throw a number of mattresses and hookers into, and start making some serious cash. Once that rolled in, so did the drugs and so did the punters.

  Now, he was sat atop of the seedy side of London and Riggs was sure as hell not going to let it go. Which is why, as his trusted friend begged for them to give it all up, he could feel his fists clenching with anger.

  ‘Elmore, we been together since back in the day,’ Wiseman pleaded. ‘This guy ain’t gonna stop. I say we go. Tonight.’

  ‘Why? Because you told him where we at?’ Riggs took a menacing step forward. On the sofa against the far wall, two of his trusted guards sat, scantily clad women writhing on their laps. Lines of cocaine sat on top of the table, alongside piles of money and loaded hand guns.

  ‘Look what he did to me,’ Wiseman protested, lifting his bandaged hand, the bullet hole severing several nerves and any hope of a functioning hand again. ‘He did this to me, to get to you.’

  ‘Part of the job, son.’ Riggs shrugged. He looked around at the makeshift pent house with pride, the drugs, the goons, the weapons. All he had ever wanted to be was a gangster.

  ‘Not part of our friendship,’ Wiseman spat, before prodding a finger into Riggs’s bare chest. ‘I’m out.’

  Riggs’s eyes widened in fury and quick as a flash, he swung a hard, back hand, his ring clad fingers clattering into the side of Wiseman’s head. As blood sprayed from the gash that appeared above his eyebrow, Wiseman stumbled back, crashing over a side table, the clatter echoing over the hip hop music thumping out of the nearby speakers. Wiseman dabbed a hand at the blood seeping down his face, before looking up at Riggs with terror, whose eyes were wild with rage.

  ‘Out? Out?!’ Riggs roared, spit flying from his mouth. ‘You know how far we have come, Sean. We were out on the fucking street, watching these white motherfuckers get rich off of us selling drugs for them. They sat in leather seats, getting fat and paid while we were out there, dodging bullets and running from the fucking pigs. Then, after I got out, I told you we were gonna get something more for ourselves. We were gonna get a seat at the adult’s table. Look at us, Sean. We ain’t fighting for scraps from the table anymore. We are the motherfucking table. And this shit, is not something you can just walk away from.’

  One of the barely dressed women handed a towel to Wiseman, who pressed it against his bloodied face as he slowly got to his feet.

  ‘And what if Sam Pope turns up here, huh?’ Wiseman yelled, his eyes watering from the pain. ‘What then? You gonna kill him?’

  ‘Kill him? Shit, I’m gonna shake his damn hand, bruv.’ Riggs beamed another grin. ‘He cleared the path to the throne.’

  ‘He didn’t clear a path. He cut down everything in his way,’ Wiseman said, shaking his head in anger. ‘He’ll do the same thing here.’

  ‘Then maybe it is best you leave. Seen as how you acting like a little bitch.’

  A few sniggers came from the thugs sat on the sofa, both of them glaring at Wiseman as he shot them an angered glance. Suddenly, Sam Pope’s threat from the night before wasn’t so bad. Sure, he had been terrified and had a bullet blasted through his hand. But now, as he looked around at the lack of professionalism and care, he realised that if it wasn’t Sam Pope, it was going to be someone else. It was time to get out. Taking a deep breath, Wiseman forced himself to look at Riggs.

  ‘Fine, I’ll go.’

  He turned, heading towards the door, when the largest member of the crew, imaginatively named ‘Tiny’, stepped in front of the door, his massive arms folded across his barrel chest like two pythons coiling each other.

  Wiseman swallowed hard, before turning back to Riggs, who had a look of regret on his face. He was also holding a gold-plated Glock in his hand.

  ‘Sean, you motherfucker. Why you put me in this position, man?’

  ‘Look, El, you don’t have to do this…’ Wiseman began to beg, holding up his damaged hand. ‘Please, let me just go and I’ll never say anything to anyone. I swear,’

  ‘I can’t let that happen. You know too much about our set up, about our plans for expansion. In here, I can protect you. Out there, they gonna eat you alive. Sam Pope got you
talking like that.’ He snapped his fingers. ‘And I’ll handle that when he makes himself known. But I don’t want any more wolves coming to the door, ya feel me?’

  ‘Then let me stay,’ Wiseman offered, his body shaking with fear. ‘I’ll stay and we can take this whole city like you wanted.’

  Riggs gritted his teeth and shook his head, tossing a troubling thought around in his mind. The music had been turned off and now all eyes were on the two men and the mounting tension. Riggs had grown up with Wiseman, the two of them had been neighbours on the eighth floor of the same building in Neasden. The estate was riddled with gangs and before their tenth birthdays, they were already acting as look outs for some of the bigger boys. They eventually dropped out of school together at the age of thirteen, running their own corner and making more money than their parents ever had. Wiseman had never met his dad, but he knew that Riggs’s was a crack addict and violent and Riggs turned up to the corner on more than one occasion in a broken state. On Riggs’s sixteenth birthday, his father died from an overdose.

  Wiseman knew that Riggs had done it and his friend had never denied it. But they trusted each other, with Riggs even removing the eye of a man who had attacked Wiseman with a baseball bat. That had gotten him seven years in Pentonville and when he was released, Wiseman was off the streets and working his way through an Open University course in business management.

  Now, years later, the two of them were stood a few metres apart, with Riggs tossing up the idea of their loyalty to one another, to his place on throne ever since The Gent had been left bullet riddled by Sam Pope.

  Their friendship.

  Or his power.

  With a deep sigh, Riggs lifted the pistol, the gun suddenly feeling very heavy in his hand, and he aimed it squarely at Wiseman, whose tear-stained face lost all its colour.

  The same way everyone’s does when they realise they’re about to die.

  A gunshot rang out.

  Suddenly, the window collapsed into a million shards and a bullet ripped through the room, ripping through Tiny’s kneecap, shattering it instantly and splattering the entire door with blood. The large guard went down, screaming in agony as he held his wrecked leg, rolling side to side in an ever-increasing pool of blood. The cries for help were drowned out by the sheer panic of the rest of the room, with the women all screaming and racing for the other door, while the men all reached for their guns, all of them pointing them towards the shattered window and into the downpour of the night sky. The wind whipped through the opening, flicking rain droplets across one of the tables.

  Riggs had dropped to the wooden floor, tipping over one of the tables and covering the floorboards in a plethora of drugs and money. Leaning against the wood, he held his pistol in his hand, yelling at his men to stay cool and to get down. As they obliged, he noticed Wiseman tending to Tiny, a sharp pang of guilt shot through him like the bullet had Tiny’s knee.

  He was going to kill his best friend.

  For power.

  Just as he began to process what that meant, the entire room looked at each other in shock at the next noise they heard. With all of them expecting heavy fire to rain down upon them, and a myriad of bullets to riddle their penthouse, they all looked at each other blankly.

  A mobile phone was ringing.

  Riggs’s phone.

  As the cold wind whipped through the empty window, Riggs reached around the table with his free hand and retrieved the phone from a small pile of cocaine that had been tossed across the floor.

  The screen said ‘Wiseman.’

  Scowling, he answered.

  ‘Mr Riggs. It’s Sam Pope.’ The voice spoke calmly. ‘I believe you have been expecting me.’

  As the rain clattered the city of London, Aaron Hill stumbled through a group of kids, ignoring their jeers and idle threats before they continued on towards Shepherd’s Bush station. He knew this wasn’t the safest neighbourhood in London, yet here he was. He trembled as his drunken state slowly morphed into a hangover, his brain pressing against his skull as if it wanted to escape.

  It had been several hours since he had been to the Met, drunkenly yelling at them to help him find his daughter.

  They had written him off as just another paranoid drunk, trying his best to get thrown in the cells to shelter himself from the bitter night ahead.

  What he was, was a man at the end of his rope. A loving single father, who had waited up all night for his fifteen-year-old daughter to return home.

  A man who now had nothing to lose.

  As the elements crashed against him, the bitterness of the evening shook him from his drunken haze and clarity sprung to the forefront of his mind. Ever since his wife had tragically passed away, he had been so protective of their daughter.

  Jasmine.

  She was a good kid, always well behaved and clearly set for big things after school. But as a single father, there were parts of her life he couldn’t guide her through, and he had made up for that by being overbearing. Which had pushed her to rebel.

  Which had forced him to let her go to that party the night before.

  Tears joined the rain water that was cascading down his face as he stumbled past the entrance to the BBC grounds, the large, glass covered buildings lit up brilliantly in the night sky.

  In the distance, the roar of the QPR fans vibrated from Loftus Road stadium, the flashlights bathing part of the night sky in a magnificent glow, illuminating the torrential downpour from above as the Saturday evening kick off was well underway.

  Jasmine had never returned home from the party.

  None of her friends knew where she’d gone, with one or two of them mentioning a boy who had led her outside. The thought of his daughter being sexually active filled him with dread, but worse was unthinkable.

  He had tracked her phone to the abandoned Kodak offices just on the outskirts of the borough, the building was rumoured to be a haven for crime.

  For drugs.

  For rape.

  Shaking with a mixture of fear and rage, Aaron slipped his hand to the back of his jeans and retrieved the loaded Glock he had bought that afternoon. It hadn’t been hard, a few terrifying conversations and the parting with a thousand pounds. He had spent the entire day staring at it, drinking himself to a drunken stupor, where his desperation not to use it had carried him all the way to that police station. The petite, pretty woman who had demanded he left had set in motion a series of events that would likely get him killed.

  He knew that.

  But without his daughter, he would have nothing left to live for.

  Approaching the front door to the building, he noticed a number of lights on within, undoubtedly groups of criminals getting down to their business. His biggest fear was finding her in one of the rooms, hooked on drugs and being passed around from demented sicko to demented sicko.

  Or her body, violated and disposed of.

  That rage struck him, just as a clap of thunder roared through the night sky, like a physical manifestation of his mindset. Taking a deep breath, he fumbled slightly and eventually managed to slide his finger over the trigger.

  The gun felt heavy in his hand.

  Just as he stepped in through the door, the onrushing wind whipped around him, slamming it shut and blocking out the noise of a rifle shot that Sam Pope had just sent through the top-floor window.

  Chapter Six

  ‘You one crazy motherfucker, you know that?’ Riggs said, shaking his head. With his back pressed against the upturned table, he knew somewhere in the cold, wet night, Sam Pope had a gun fixed on his position. Riggs scanned the room, the mayhem the one bullet had caused. Rain fell through the shattered glass onto the shards below the window. Three of his soldiers had taken cover as well, all of them snarling and gripping their pistols.

  Tiny had reduced his screams of agony into pathetic whimpers, the blood loss slowly ebbing away his consciousness. Wiseman, his hand heavily bandaged, looked panicked at the situation. The floor was scattered with loos
e bank notes, cards, and drugs.

  Sam Pope could see it all.

  From the building across the street, he laid flat on the hard, cold, wooden floor on the fifth floor. The building had long since been abandoned, a derelict office block that was once alive with activity. From the faded signage in the lobby, this particular floor had once homed an elite recruitment agency, specialising in IT software. Now, as the thin windows gave little resistance to the wind that was lashing at his body, Sam was using it as a sniping spot. With the distance between the two buildings no more than a hundred yards, he had elected not to bring his actual sniper rifle. The weapon had forged his fearsome reputation and had been used to obliterate a number of skulls. As he stared down the scope, he adjusted his grip on his trusty assault rifle, the crosshairs focused on the table he knew Riggs was behind. He could have littered it with a flurry of bullets, ripping the man apart before systematically assassinating the rest of his men.

  But he didn’t want that.

  He had enough death on his hands.

  Riggs’s voice wormed its way through the Bluetooth headphones Sam had attached to his ear.

  ‘You still there, Pope?’

  ‘I am indeed,’ Sam replied politely, adjusting his gloved finger on the trigger. His Glock was pressed against the small of his spine. A flash and smoke grenade hung from a sling across his chest, which he had pushed to one side.

  He was there. And fully equipped.

  ‘So, what you gon do? You gon wait there like a pussy all night, or you gon come see me?’ Riggs spat, his bravado as fake as the gold chains he had round his neck. ‘Because we already sent word we under fire. That’s right, white boy, we gon have two Beamers full of some hard motherfuckers here in five minutes. But they ain’t comin’ to my building, they’ll be comin’ to you.’