The Rule of Fear. Luke Delaney

She kissed him on the lips and fussed around him, making him smile at the special treatment he was receiving.

      ‘Sit down, sit down,’ she insisted. ‘I want to hear all about your first day back.’

      He slumped in one of their only two kitchen chairs that lived under the small circular dining table, also used as a part-time desk, thankful to be sitting after spending the first day on his feet for more than nine months. ‘Nothing to tell,’ he lied. ‘Just a normal day at the office.’

      ‘I don’t think so,’ she reminded him. ‘Your first day back on the streets. Your first day as a sergeant on full duties. Your first day in charge of the Estate Policing Unit.’

      ‘OK,’ he relented, nodding his head. ‘It went well. Team seem solid, although Davey Brown wants to lock horns all the time.’

      ‘Oh, I know Davey Brown,’ she told him. ‘The ex-Marine, right?’ He just nodded. ‘You know his type. They want to be sergeants, but they don’t want to have to bother with the exams – think they’ve got a right to promotion just because they know what they’re doing on the streets. But I know you. You’ll soon have Davey Brown eating out of the palm of your hand.’

      ‘Maybe what we do on the streets for real should dictate who gets promoted and not just who can pass exams?’ he questioned.

      ‘That’s a little rich coming from someone on accelerated promotion,’ she reminded him. ‘Turkeys don’t generally vote for Christmas.’

      ‘Well, we had a decent arrest on our first day,’ he explained, letting her comment slip away. ‘Craig Rowsell for screwing a car on the estate. He nicked some ancient stereo from some clapped-out BMW. I mean, why would you bother nicking that? It wasn’t worth shit.’

      ‘Because he’s a thief,’ she reminded him. ‘What does he care? He’s not thinking about the logic of breaking a hundred-pound window to steal a ten-pound stereo. None of it’s his loss. As far as he’s concerned if he sees a ten-pence piece on the seat of a car why not smash the window to get it. At the end of the day he’ll be 10p up.’

      King unconsciously rubbed the back of his injured shoulder. ‘I’ll never understand these people,’ he complained. ‘If you’re gonna be a thief, be a good one. Steal something that’s worth something.’

      ‘If you’re getting it for nothing, then everything’s worth something,’ she tried to explain, before noticing he was rubbing his back and grimacing slightly. ‘Giving you trouble?’ she asked.

      ‘Uh?’ he replied, momentarily confused before he realized what he was doing and self-consciously pulled his hand away. ‘I’m fine. Just a little sore, that’s all.’

      ‘Have you taken your pills?’

      ‘I took some earlier,’ he assured her. ‘Probably due some more about now,’ he added as he rose and headed to the cupboard where they kept all their medicines and first aid equipment and popped two four-hundred-milligram tablets of buprenorphine from their plastic and tinfoil homes and threw them into his mouth as he headed for the fridge and grabbed himself a beer. He used the bottle opener attached to the door to lift the lid and washed the pills down with a large swig.

      ‘I thought you were supposed to let them dissolve on your tongue before swallowing,’ Sara reminded him.

      He swallowed hard to force the pills further into his stomach before answering. ‘I know, but they taste shocking. What difference can it make anyway?’

      ‘I don’t know, but maybe you should stick to the instructions.’

      ‘It’ll be fine,’ he tried to reassure her.

      ‘And those ones are opioids,’ she warned him. ‘Perhaps you should try to come off them and use something else.’

      ‘Fine,’ he shrugged. ‘I’ll ask my GP next time I see her.’

      ‘You mean the GP you never go and see?’

      He looked her up and down with admiring eyes before taking another drink of beer and sitting on the chair in front of her. ‘Maybe all it needs is a good massage?’ he suggested.

      ‘Oh,’ she smiled, taking hold of his shoulder with both hands. ‘You reckon that’s all you need.’

      He slipped his arms around her waist and pulled her a little closer, rolling his neck as her fingers dug deep and began to relax him. ‘That feels nice,’ he told her.

      ‘Only nice?’ she teased.

      ‘It feels good,’ he improved. ‘Really good.’ He felt tired parts of his body start to awaken as he pulled her a little closer and began to unbutton the white police blouse she still wore, pulling it open and kissing her soft, pale skin, making her gasp a little before she spread her legs and sat astride him, moving her mouth onto his as his hands moved upwards to cup her breasts through the lace of her white bra.

      She whispered in his ear as she panted a little for breath. ‘Not here. Let’s go to the bedroom.’

      ‘Here’s fine,’ he argued, kissing her neck and covering her body in goose bumps, but she pulled away, smiling seductively, taking his hand and encouraging him to his feet.

      ‘The bedroom’s more comfortable,’ she told him, ‘for what I have in mind.’

      ‘And what would that be?’ he asked, his voice hoarse with desire.

      ‘Come with me and you’ll find out,’ she promised as she rose from his chair and he willingly followed her towards the bedroom.

       3

      King and Williams hid in a stairwell tower overlooking flats in Millander Walk – specifically the one belonging to the local handler, Arman Baroyan. Williams continued to explain the night’s events as King listened intently, considering their options – his eyes never leaving the flat opposite.

      ‘Two residential burglaries overnight – both on the estate, both very close together in time and location. They took so much stuff there’s no way they could have shifted it yet. I figure sooner or later they’ll bring it to Baroyan.’

      ‘What did they take?’ King asked.

      ‘Like I said – shedloads. TVs, Blu-ray players, a laptop, a disc drive, jewellery, clothes, booze – you name it.’

      ‘That’s too much to shift in the open in broad daylight,’ King argued.

      ‘Unless they’re stupid or desperate,’ Williams grinned.

      ‘I suppose we could get lucky,’ King admitted.

      ‘Or maybe they’ll bring it here bit by bit – in which case what do we do?’

      ‘If we catch them out in the open with any of the gear we’ll nick them before they even reach Baroyan’s. Remember what I told you all – we’re not after the handlers and dealers yet. Instead let’s use them as a source of arrests.’

      Williams nodded in agreement. ‘Fine by me.’

      A few seconds later a clearly empty-handed youth casually approached Baroyan’s flat, stopping and checking he wasn’t being watched before he prepared to knock on the door. Once satisfied he was unobserved, he reached through the solid-looking metal grid covering the door and pounded on the reinforced wood.

      ‘Allo,’ King whispered. ‘Who’s this then? D’you recognize him?’

      ‘I know this little slag,’ Williams told him. ‘That’s Stuart Weller. He works as a runner for Baroyan – ferrying messages backwards and forwards for him, arranging where to drop nicked gear.’

      ‘I guess Baroyan doesn’t trust phones then,’ King suggested.

      ‘Would