Guns Of Brixton by Mark Timlin

it had been just about everything. Acid, smack,
coke and, recently, ecstasy. There were other more powerful drugs going the
rounds too - names like Ketamine, angel dust and horse trancs. Everything under
the sun and some that rarely saw the light of day. But Jimmy had packed it all
in a few years back. Too many casualties.
        And
soon he'd be free. Not a young man admittedly. The next biggun was 6-0. But he
was still fit. Still got some lead in his pencil, and when he got out, there
were some scores to settle.
        He
smiled at the thought, then his smile dropped.
        Where
the hell was that bloody coffee?

Chapter 9
        
        Under
the muddy sky of that January day, there were a lot of people thinking about
the past and the present. Maybe it was the time of year, or maybe it was a
premonition of things to come. Up the road from Brixton prison, inside an
office in Streatham Police Station, Detective Sergeant Sean Pierce was at it
too. His computer was down, and he was kicking his heels waiting for It to
reboot, passing the time doodling the stick figure of a hanged man on his pad
and letting his mind wander. Twenty years, he thought. And now the bastard's
going to come out. And what will we all do then? Everything's a lie, he
thought. Even my sodding name. But he and his mother and sister had happily
taken it when Tom Pierce had asked Marjorie Hunter to marry him. Not everyone
would've done that. Not married a cop killer's wife and taken on his two brats.
And brats they'd certainly been, him and Linda. But then, who could blame them?
Years of being teased by their schoolmates for being the children of a murderer
had made them what they were.
        So
when Tom Pierce had come along and courted Sean and Linda's mother, they'd
almost bitten his hand off. Tom was steady, you see. Working for the gas board
at their offices in Croydon. A decent house and a decent car. Regular money and
even a Christmas bonus. A job for life he'd told them. He'd believed that and
so had they. But that had been the old days. After Tom had been pensioned off
at fifty-five as too old for the new technology, he'd barely lasted another
couple of years before dropping off his perch.
        And
then Marjorie had died. As much from a broken heart as cancer, Sean believed.
He hadn't thought she'd really loved Tom when they'd married, but sometimes
love can grow on the stoniest of ground.
        The
brother and sister had survived. Sean had joined the police under the name of
Pierce. Why not? It was his name. And he was honest, was Sean. Sometimes too
honest for his own good. It wasn't his fault his father had been a thief and a
murderer. This was his way of making up for James Hunter's bad deeds. And then
Linda had married Andy Spiers, another good man with a regular job, a decent
house and a decent wage. He'd worked for a multinational company on the sales
and marketing side. Then, on his way to a big meeting up north, the driver of a
highsided truck owned by another multinational had fallen asleep at the wheel
of his vehicle, swerved over to the overtaking lane and swatted the car, in
which Andy Spiers had been a passenger, then travelled through the central
reservation and head on into a Rover 75 saloon speeding towards them.' Only the
driver of the truck survived the multi-vehicle pileup that followed. Sixteen
dead all told. It had been headlines for a day, page five for two more, then
more or less forgotten after that. Linda had a pension _ from Andy's firm, his
life insurance, and mortgage protection had paid off the house. The truck
driver's firm had paid big compensation out of court, not wanting their company
name smeared all over the papers again. Financially she was secure. But
emotionally? Sean didn't know.
        After
the accident, he'd temporarily moved out of the police section house and lodged
with her and her kids, Luke and Daisy. A flat over the garage in the house in
Purley. But what had started out on a