The First Stella Cole Boxset
The Revenge Trilogy: Hit and Done, Hit Back Harder, Hit and Done
Andy Maslen
For honest coppers everywhere.
“I'll never pause again, never stand still,
Till either death hath closed these eyes of mine
Or fortune given me measure of revenge.”
William Shakespeare, Henry VI part 3
“And though the villain ’scape a while, he feels
Slow vengeance, like a bloodhound, at his heels.”
Jonathan Swift
“They are not dead who live in the hearts they leave behind.”
Native American proverb
Contents
Volume 1
Hit and Run
1. Hit and Run
2. The Whole Truth
3. Sweet and Proper
4. Back in Harness
5. Light Duties
6. Descent into Purgatory
7. Spring Cleaning
8. Fight or Flight
9. Death in Custody
10. Absence of Evidence
11. Kill #9
12. Forensic Assistance
13. Viola del Diavolo
14. A Bad Day
15. Suffer the Little Children
16. Armoury Tour
17. How to Vanish a Pistol
18. Concealed Carry
19. A Friend
20. From Beyond
21. Paint
22. Shopping Trip
23. Square Eyes
24. Ammunition. Lots
25. Is it Ever OK to Date a Suspect?
26. Charity
27. Sending a Message
28. Help Wanted
29. Moxey's Mojo
30. One Down
31. A Dead Child Buys Guns
32. Ready, Aim …
33. Fire!
34. Hunter/Hunted
35. Ramage
36. A Mother's Love
37. Stella's Final Shot
Epilogue
Volume 2
Hit Back Harder
1. Sail Away
2. Standing Ovation
3. Mistaken Identity
4. Murderers’ Row
5. Any Friend of Gordon’s
6. Outlaws
7. Sweating
9. The George and Dragon
10. A Modest Proposal
11. Trouble and Strife
12. Frenzy by Nature
13. Business
14. Amazonian Predators
15. Alley Cat
16. Trading Favours
17. Hidden in Plain Sight
18. Detective Work
19. Set the Dogs Loose
20. Lockup
21. Honour Amongst Thieves
22. Crime Scene
23. Change of Plan
24. Courtesy Call
25. Deep Throat
26. Goodbye, Lola
27. Mystery Blonde
28. Family Life
29. Story of the Century
30. A Death in the Family
31. Pitching
32. Stalker
33. The Field’s End
34. Cold Justice
35. Regrouping
36. The Stalker, Stalked
37. Vigilante
38. Driving Without Due Care and Attention
39. What to Bring to a Gunfight
40. Threat/Counter-threat
41. Oh, I Do Like to be Beside the Seaside
42. Ships That Pass
43. Ferenczy Calls Collier
44. Your Money, Mr Wilks
45. Tit for Tat
46. Yiannis Terzi, MD
47. Mental Health
48. Doctor’s Appointment
49. Crime Victim
50. Lex Talionis
51. Disappearing Act
52. Plan C
53. Pain
54. Another Invitation
55. A Call From a Cousin
56. The Vanishing Police Officer
57. Pro Patria Mortem
58. Joining Forces
59. Getting Ready to Go Out
60. Party Girl
61. What Does QC Stand For?
62. Freddie’s Gaff
63. A Bit of Mutual Backscratching
64. Metal/Wood Work
65. Time to Run
66. Clubbing
67. Gang Violence
68. Five Down, One to Go
69. Me and My Shadow
70. Takeover Bid
71. The Prodigal Daughter
72. Officer Down
Volume 3
Hit and Done
1. Deep Clean
2. You Don’t Have to Be Mad to Work Here …
3. But It Helps
4. Sectioned
5. Single Room, Double Occupancy
6. A Little Chat
7. The Heavy Squad
8. Naming Names
9. Down Payment
10. New Admission
11. Gloria. From Malta
12. A Friend of Vicky’s
13. All That Glistens
14. Stopping Elsie
15. Accident & Emergency
16. Victim Impact Statement
17. Midnight Till Dawn
18. Under Sedation
19. Ingatestone
20. House Guest
21. Ongoing Investigation
22. Amazing What You Can Find on the Internet
23. Following in Stella’s Footsteps
24. A Day Off
25. A Nice Trip to the Coast
26. L is for Lola
27. Retired
28. Family Scrapbook
29. A Promising Career
30. Confession
31. Honesty is the Best Policy
32. Journalistic Ethics
33. Crime Scene
34. Beauty Spot
35. A Reputation to Maintain
36. Close Shave
37. The Dynamic Duo
38. Flight
39. All PR is Good PR
40. Entering, But Not Breaking
41. An Old Friend
42. Death Notice
43. At Last, Some Good News
44. A Burial
45. A Sad Story
46. Money Launderer
47. Illegal Immigrant
48. Target Practice
49. Hunting Trip
50. Airweight
51. Goodbye, Stella
52. No Witnesses
53. Shaman
54. Oxford Road, Putney, 6th March 2009
55. Alone Again
56. Welcoming Party
57. Hitcher, Beware
58. What Happens When You Fuck With Stella Cole
59. Bar Job
60. Quis Custodiet Ipsos Custodes?
62. Party People
63. Star of the North
64. In the Dark of the Night
65. Wrap Up Warm
66. Till Death Do Us Part
67. Home Again, Home Again
68. Cop Killer
69. Getting Better All the Time
70. New Leaf
Acknowledgments
Copyright
Glossary
Also By Andy Maslen
About the Author
Afterword
Volume One
Hit and Run
1
Hit and Run
6 MARCH 2009
The baby’s crying grew louder. It had taken on a frantic edge. Richard Drinkwater knew the translation off by heart.
Feed me! Feeed meee!
B
ut he couldn’t.
Not till he got her home, anyway.
He didn’t have the equipment, as he liked to joke to his wife. But she’d gone back to work with the Metropolitan Police, leaving precisely measured-out bottles of her milk in the fridge each morning.
Now Lola was hungry and she wouldn’t stop screaming.
The traffic was murder. It was rush hour. And there’d been an accident somewhere to the north of them. It would have been quicker to unbuckle Lola from the car seat and walk her home. The lights up ahead seemed stuck on red. Even when they did turn green, one car, at most, managed to squeeze through.
“Come on, Lola,” he crooned. “Soon be home. Then you can fill up on Mummy Ultimate. Kristina will be there too, so you can snuggle up with her.” Sometimes he thought his daughter loved her nanny more than either of her hard-working parents. Either her or the giant teddy bear they’d christened, for no reason they could fathom, Mister Jenkins. When squeezed, the bear emitted a random sequence of squeaks, bleats and catlike mewing sounds that seemed to amuse Lola.
The baby paused in her efforts to burst either her lungs or her father’s eardrums. Drinkwater’s shoulders dropped a little, and his stomach began to unclench. He checked the rear-view mirror, sitting up straight in his seat so he could catch sight of his three-month-old daughter. Her face was red and streaked with tears and snot. As he watched, she drew in a mighty breath and then let it out again in a scream so high-pitched it made him flinch. He caught a whisper of milky breath in his nostrils that made him smile despite the industrial noise issuing from his daughter’s tiny mouth.
A car behind him sounded its horn. Twice. One of those twin-tone numbers precisely calibrated to emit the most horrible discord possible. He angled the mirror so he could see the make. Bastard! It was a Porsche. Some rich git working in a bank and earning more in a week than he did in a year. Well, darling, his mother’s voice sounded deep inside his head, perhaps you should have become a criminal barrister instead of all that human rights nonsense. Then you’d be earning a proper living instead of scraping along the bottom looking after your so-called clients.
His own car was a silver 1974 Fiat Mirafiori he liked to claim to friends was a classic. He slammed it into first and lurched forward, closing the gap between him and the car in front, a big, shiny, royal-blue BMW.
Lola’s screaming had settled into a steady, metallic screech now. In for five, hold for a beat, let it out in a shriek until her throat caught and she coughed, choking and wailing to silence. Repeat till Daddy had an aneurysm.
Then, a miracle. The traffic lights ahead turned green again, and instead of merely sitting there as they cycled through amber, red, red-and-amber, green, as had been happening for the last five minutes, the traffic moved off smoothly.
“Yes!” he shouted, slamming both open palms onto the steering wheel and bringing forth an even more desperate scream from the baby. “Oh, sorry, darling. But look, Daddy’s on the move again. We’ll soon be home, and everything will be all right.”
As he approached the front of the queue, Lola screamed again. Will we have to wait through another red? he thought. No. We’re going. He put his foot down and surged towards the traffic light, smiling as he began to catch the car in front. He craned his head to snatch another look at his baby daughter in the mirror.
The baby burbled out a couple of random sounds, “da ba”. Then she smiled, a wide, gummy expression of pure joy.
His eyes popped wide open. “What, Lola? Did you say ‘Dada’? Oh, my God, your first word. In a traffic jam too. Mummy’s going to have a fit.”
He accelerated across the box junction, heart full at the sound of his name on his daughter’s lips.
The light was on amber now, but that was just a ‘hurry up’ signal in this part of London.
The lights changed to red just as Richard Drinkwater reached the white line indicating where stopped traffic should wait. Oblivious to anything but his daughter’s renewed screams, he flew across the junction to a chorus of angry blasts of motorcycle and truck horns. He drove on for another mile or two, through gradually thinning traffic, until he reached Putney. Turning off the High Street, he heaved a sigh. The road was empty ahead and behind, as if somebody had barred anyone else from entering this little part of residential London.
Sticking the indicator on and singing to Lola, whose screams had subsided to a steady, muted keening, he turned into the street that led towards Oxford Road, and their house, and sped away from the junction.
Then it was his turn to scream.
Approaching on his side of the road was a car. It was being driven at speed. He swerved to avoid it.
But it was too little, too late.
The bang as the oncoming car smashed his offside rear wing with its own front end was loud enough to rattle windows in the houses on each side of the street. He, himself, heard nothing. His slewing, bouncing progress across the street was terminated by a cast-iron pillar box, manufactured during the reign of King George VI, and as solid now as it was then.
The Fiat hit the kerb and left the ground. Richard Drinkwater’s last coherent thought was that Lola had stopped screaming. Then the top of the pillar box punched in the side window and met his head coming in the opposite direction at thirty miles per hour.
As people began to emerge from their houses and run towards the car, intent on rescue, Drinkwater’s corpse was catapulted back against his seat, his skull smashed like an egg.
Detective Inspector Stella Cole was sitting at her desk on the Specialist Crime and Operations Division’s Homicide and Major Crime Command floor at Paddington Green Police Station. She was joking with a colleague about a recent case they’d closed.
“No way, Jake,” she said, laughing. “He’s as sane as I am. If that brief tries to plead insanity, she’s going to get My Lady Justice Miranda Jeffery’s patent leather stiletto right up her Cambridge-educated arse.”
The paunchy, balding detective sergeant perching on a desk beside her spread his hands wide, revealing an expansive belly that stretched his grey shirt tight.
“You say that, Stel, but you weren’t there when we nicked him. I’m not saying he had his old mum’s corpse in a rocking chair, but it wasn’t far off.” He raised his head and called across to another DS. “Oi, Frankie. Tell her. Wayne Stebbings’s flat. It was in a right state, wasn’t it?”
The female DS ambled over, hitching up her black polyester trousers, which had slipped down over her hips.
“He’s right, boss,” she said. “Stebbings had all these dildos and whatnot lined up on shelves.”
The male DS, Jacob “Jake” Tanner, grinned. “Go on, Frankie. Tell her the best bit.”
Frances “Frankie” O'Meara blushed. “There was one of those sex dolls, boss.”
“What, a blow-up one, you mean?”
“No. Like a real woman. Jointed and everything, looked like a sort of shop-window dummy.” The blush spread, deepening from a pale pink to a furious coral. “She … it, well it was all done up in underwear, boss. Like a tart’s, I mean. You know, stockings and suspenders, corset, the works.”
“Unbelievable,” Jake said. “And as for his porn stash, well, let’s not even go there, because…”
Frankie shushed him, her eyes signalling a warning. “Shut up, Jake.”
From the door leading to the rest of the station, Detective Chief Superintendent Adam Collier was signalling to Stella. His handsome face was stern, lips set in a straight line.
“Stella, could I have a word in private, please? My office?”