Pellacia laughed sardonically, pushing the gin and tonic towards her. ‘You first,’ he said.
‘It was suggested, no suggested is wrong. I wastoldthat they want me to transfer to LOCU.’
‘Organised crime?’ Pellacia opened his Jack Daniel’s and Coke.
Eastwood nodded. ‘I would be acting DI and have my own team but I don’t get it. Why would they want me to leave the SCU?’
‘Are you not tempted? I wouldn’t be doing my job as your boss if I didn’t ask. This unit has been through a lot, and no one would blame you if you wanted to leave and take up the opportunity to lead your own unit.’
‘Look, guv,’ Eastwood said, leaning forward. ‘I do want to be an Inspector, maybe even DCI and take your job.’
Pellacia smiled. ‘One day.’
‘But let’s be honest. Henley would probably get there first.’
‘Truth is, she should have been the one sitting in Rhimes’s chair, not me. If it wasn’t for Olivier nearly killing her and …’ Pellacia paused as the memories of the serial killer, Peter Olivier, carving a crescent and double cross into the skin on his chest, flashed in his mind. ‘The point is, it should have been her.’
‘Punished for doing her job,’ Eastwood snorted. ‘But as I was saying. I want the position of DI because I’ve earned it and not because someone handed it to me on a plate.’
‘Who exactly was making the offer?’
‘Irene from HR didn’t say, but what she did say was that she wasn’t sure if the SCU would still be around in six months.’
‘They’ve got this annoying habit of talking out of both sides of their mouth,’ said Pellacia as the boat came to a brief stop at Blackfriars. ‘I’ve spent the entire morning in a budgetary meeting and there wasn’t one hint of the SCU being shut down. In fact, it was the opposite; practically falling over themselves to commend me and the SCU for our results.’
‘It’s the art of deflection, isn’t it?’ Eastwood sipped her gin and tonic. ‘You think that they’re giving you a pat on the back without realising that they’re holding a knife.’
‘I shouldn’t be surprised. They’re not happy that we exposed their golden boy and his corruption.’
‘You mean that this is payback for exposing Larsen?’
Pellacia nodded. He’d spent the summer sitting in endless meetings, first with the Independent Office for Police Conduct and the CPS explaining, ad nauseum, how ex-police commissioner James Larsen had bribed witnesses and destroyed evidence. Larsen did everything possible to undermine the credibility of their boss, DCSI Rhimes and the SCU. It was more than just misconduct. Larsen’s actions had led to the wrongful conviction of Andrew Streeter for the murder of five people. There had been no happy endings when Streeter’s convictions were overturned. Streeter had been killed by the real killer, Scott Beckett, who’d been allowed to freely walk the streets for twenty-five years. As far as Pellacia was concerned, Larsen had a lot of blood on his hands.
‘But if you look up corrupt officers in the dictionary, there would be a picture of Larsen. Are you trying to tell me that the higher-ups would have been happier if we’d just left Larsen to disappear quietly into early retirement and leave Rhimes with a question mark on his grave?’ Eastwood asked.
‘I’m not going to sit here and tell you that you’re wrong.’
There was nothing said for a few moments. The silence between them comfortable as the boat sped away from Blackfriars.
‘I never expected it to be easy, running the SCU I mean,’ said Pellacia. ‘But I never expected—’
‘Them to be so underhand.’
‘Exactly that,’ Pellacia agreed. He crushed the empty can in his hand before picking up the bottle of beer and settling back into his seat.
‘It probably doesn’t help that Sian Fox-Carnell is now out on bail.’
Pellacia leaned his head back and sighed. ‘It doesn’t bloody help at all. I know that we’re not at fault with Fox-Carnell and we’ve got the support of the borough commander but that’s the equivalent of having a lone lieutenant attempting to go to war against a battalion.’
‘So, what’s the plan?’
‘We keep doing what we’re doing,’ Pellacia answered ‘But we’re also going to have to go through every request that we’ve received in the past six months, not only from the Met but from every other police force. We need to make sure that the numbers don’t lie. That we have a substantial caseload. We can’t give the higher-ups any reason to think that we’re acting like a bunch of prima donnas and refusing to designate cases as serial crimes.’
‘Guv, there are forty-three police forces in England and Wales. Forty-six if you include the British Transport Police, Scotland and Northern Ireland.’
‘And I’m pretty sure that every single one of them has contacted us at some point.’
‘Fine.’ Eastwood drained her gin and tonic. ‘No disrespect to you, guv, but there are only four of us who are actively working cases. I’m not saying that all you do is sit behind a desk—’
