The Family Firm

Chapter 29

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.