DI Wallace looked at the tenements and sighed. His career had always taken him to the filthiest corners of London all twenty-two years he'd worked there, and today wasn't about to be any exception. The low-rise building had been built after the war and aside from minor renovations in the late sixties, it had been neglected ever since, which was obvious from the graffiti covering its exterior to the broken and bricked-over windows.
For as long as Wallace could remember, it had been a junkie's paradise, housing all sorts of derelicts and scoundrels, all of whom were both hideously filthy and dependent on the pipe, or the needle, or whatever their method of choice was. He hated working with junkies because they were generally unreliable, but as is the case of most double-edged swords, they usually provided him the best inside information.
He was looking for a drug dealer, a low-time chancer named Billy Club, or rather William Brown. He was notorious for using a truncheon he'd stolen to throw his weight around, especially when gathering money from the sort of helpless junkies that lived in the decrepit block of flats standing ahead of the Detective Inspector. In fact, he theorised that Billy only sold to the poor bastards because he knew they would inevitably be unable to pay, and he could beat the living hell out of the poor sods. He was a sadistic fuck who counted on the fact that no one cared about these people because they were miserable junkies that had long since over-stayed their welcome in society.
Well, Wallace cared. Wallace cared because there was now an eighteen year-old barmaid in Barking, the man's own ex-girlfriend, who had miscarried their child after one of his beatings. She hadn't come to the police, of course; Wallace did it as a favour to an old friend of his. That friend was more than capable of doing the job himself but this was now personal for Wallace. He hated the kind of scum that beat women. He understood maybe a slap here or there, and knew that women weren't completely untouchable, but to beat her so hard she bled out miscarried? That was fucking deplorable. He knew what it was like to lose a child, and so he was looking forward to kicking in that fucker's face as soon as he found him.
There would be no legal process. Cunts like him only benefited from them. Wallace would make sure he was punished a lot worse than the law could ever do.
Extinguishing the cigarette he'd busied himself with, he stepped inside the dark block of flats and was immediately hit with a pungent wall of ammonia-heavy urine, sick, and burning drugs. It was unmistakable, and almost intolerable; he was close to retching but didn't particularly want to add to the nauseating smell of sick that permeated the walls and floors.
In the dark, the stench was so much worse, because his brain wasn't being bombarded with visual images to distract him from it. There weren't any lights of course, because the place was condemned, but like most things in this part of East End, completely forgotten and neglected, which was why the squatters, junkies, and street sleepers tended to flock there.
Raising his torch, he continued deeper into the wasteland of paper and old cans that covered the floors, wary not to step on any stray needles. There was graffiti on the walls, and blood, or faeces, but realistically probably both, and he didn't dwell on it very long. You couldn't allot much time to focus on your surroundings in a place like this or you'd go mad; as mad as the people who lived there.
He could see the orange haze from a barrel fire nearby and approached it. There was a shirtless, tattooed old man sitting on the floor ahead of it, his silvery hair and beard both long, matted, and filthy. He still had the heroin needle stuck in his arm and had either fallen asleep or died sitting upright. Wallace shined the torch in his heavily-lidded eyes but he didn't wince and his pupils didn't even dilate, so he figured this endeavour was fruitless.
Careful not to touch anything, he very precariously ascended the nearby stairwell. It was a biohazard in and of itself, with broken railings and gaping holes in the steps. As he planted his foot near the top, the wood gave way and he stumbled forward, glancing back into the darkness and wondering how anyone could fucking live like this. He'd say it was a miracle if he didn't want to tarnish God's work with something so grotesque.
The first storey was as bad as the ground floor. The light from the barrel fire didn't travel this far and so it was only Wallace and his torch as he looked around for any sign of life.
Something barrelled into his legs, and he felt his heart leap upwards into his throat as he looked downward to inspect it. There was a half-caste boy not more than two years old, unsteady on his bow-legged feet. He was an adorable thing with big brown eyes and thick, curly hair, but he was filthy; his nappy was so filled with urine it nearly slipped off his legs, and there was mucus encrusted beneath his nose from not having anyone wipe it off.
Carefully, Wallace plucked the child up beneath his skinny little arms and began looking around for the mother, who must have been close by, if she had any fucking shame left as a parent. Sure enough, she was fortunately sitting in the next room over, distracted by the spliff she was struggling to light.
Wallace stormed inside. 'Is this your son?'
With the carelessness of someone choosing the colour of wall paint, the woman's black, rat-like eyes glanced over in his direction. Through the torch light, he could see the whites of her eyes were severely yellowed, and there were premature age lines set deeply on her face. She had chalky, almost bluish skin and her coarse, black hair was dangerously thin and wiry. He could tell that she might have been beautiful once, before the drugs. But they had aged her, and her poverty took an extreme toll on her, making a woman who couldn't have been older than twenty-five look older than her own mum.
Drugs were a disgusting thing, and the DI wouldn't touch them.
'Yeah,' she said with a voice that sounded like she was chewing on gravel or struggling to speak over the phlegm in her throat. 'Georgie, come to mummy.'
Wallace, almost afraid to hand the child over to her, instead set him down on his unsteady legs. Georgie wandered around the room aimlessly then, as if completely unaware of his mother's presence, or undeterred by it. This spoke a lot for the clatty bitch, Wallace thought.
'What's your name?' he asked.
She looked at him with a smile tugging up the corners of her full lips, and her teeth were hideously stained brown, like an animal's. 'Anyfink you want it to be, Officer.'
He was unamused. 'Cut the shite, I just need to know what to call you.'
Humbled and annoyed, she coughed that familiar junkie cough that lingered deep in the chest. 'Susan.'
'All right, Susan,' began Wallace. Now they were getting somewhere. 'Where do you get your drugs? From who?'
Susan immediately shook her head, returning to her endeavour of lighting the spliff. 'It's only a bit of puff, mate. You've come all the way over here to nick me over that?'
'I'm nae here to arrest you, Susan,' he reassured her. Deciding a different approach, he asked firmly, 'Do you know Billy Club?'
This seemed to amuse the junkie, and she laughed. 'Of course I fucking know him. That's his son and all.'
Wallace shouldn't have even been surprised, all things considered. Billy Club had more bastard children than Genghis Khan.
Kneeling ahead of Susan, he decided to speak more quietly. 'Do you know where he is?'
She looked at him before chuckling and turning her face away, shaking her head repeatedly. 'You know, you ain't the first filth to come looking for him. He's a drug dealer. It ain't like he gives out his identification and fucking telephone number, you feel me bruv?'
Wallace sighed. This was why he hated working for junkies. At least he could say Susan seemed coherent—more than most of the heroin addicts lying around, not even noticing the insects crawling on their skin. It was sad, in a way. He could almost picture her and her son in a decent place, away from this life. The squatter tenements was the last stop on many a drug addict's train. It was the end of the line, with only the next hit or overdose to look forward to. Only being in her twenties, Wallace wanted to believe she had a chance. But it was unlikely, and even less likely for her innocent son, who hadn't asked to be born to a junkie mum. He deserved so much more than that.
'Look,' began the DI, gesturing to the boy in question, who by then was playing with an old can of Vimto. 'Billy got a girl pregnant, a young girl just like you, a girl with her life ahead of her. And he took a truncheon—do you know what that is, duck? A big billy club, what he got his name from. He took that billy club, all right, and he beat her with it until that baby inside her, that baby, died. A baby, like young Georgie over there.'
He let that sink in, and watched as she absorbed the information. She was looking at her boy, the sweet child with chubby cherub's cheeks and big, beautiful eyes. He could tell that Susan was conflicted by what he'd given her to digest, which was the point entirely.
After a moment, she said quietly, 'Nicking him won't do ya any good. You know he'll be out in a few months.'
'I'm nae going to arrest him, Susan,' he reassured her. 'I want him to pay as much as you do. I think it's disgusting what he did. Absolutely disgusting. I want that man to suffer.'
She pressed her lips into a hard line, seeming to ruminate on the idea. Wallace was well aware that it went against a junkie's nature to trust a filth, but then again, he wasn't just any old filth, either. He handled things his way, on his time, and while his colleagues thought he was a complete cunt, he was good at his job, and his numbers didn't lie.
This, however, wasn't a job. This was pure, unadulterated revenge.
Tears had welled up in Susan's eyes, but she quickly blinked them away. 'You won't tell him it was me, right? What gave him away.'
Wallace held back a sigh of relief. He still had to get the information out of her, but it seemed to be clear skies ahead.
Placing his hand on her narrow shoulder affectionately, he told her, 'Susan, on my honour as a man, not a copper, but a man, by the time I'm done wae him, he won't be able to hurt you or anyone else for that matter.'
Susan was sated by this, and took a breath. 'All right. All right. He's got this place in Dagenham, on Reede, I think. I dunno the number, but I do know he drives a Volkswagen... Golf, I think. It's bright teal, you can't miss it. If it's in the drive, then that's his gaff.'
That was all Wallace needed. Standing, he sorted out his jacket and looked around the room. 'All right, I'll be on my way. But Susan...' Pointing at the spliff in her hand, he went on, 'I want you off that shite. Puff, heroin, whatever, I want you clean. Completely clean. And Georgie over there, I want him taken care of. Change his nappy. Get him something to eat.'
Removing his wallet from the inside of his jacket, he removed a fifty pound note and offered it to her. Susan's eyes widened and she went to snatch it, but as soon as she did so, he held it just out of her reach.
'You have three days to get out of here with that boy of yours. Three days. If you're not out of here by then, or I hear you've spent this on junk, I'll ring a bloke I know from social services and he will take Georgie away from you. Do you understand me?'
Susan nodded quickly. 'Yeah, I understand, mate. Thanks, Officer, I really do understand.'
Somewhat sated, he handed over the note and she took it eagerly, pocketing it quickly before anyone else saw.
'I'm giving you a chance here, Susan,' said the DI, looking her in the eye. 'Give that wain a chance too.'
Susan seemed to digest his words, and with one last look at young Georgie, DI Wallace made the harrowing trek back down the dilapidated stairwell and straight outside. With a breath of fresh air he didn't realise how badly he'd needed, came the clarity of his next plan.
Next stop, Dagenham. He was going to find that cunt Billy Club and give him the clubbing of his life.