II

"Dorothy's not stupid, you know."

Hunt slowed the Quattro as children ran onto the street in front. Beside him Annette Simcock looked warily out the passenger window as they continued their tour of Stepney. In the backseat Ray and Chris strained to catch every word - the schools had just emptied out their students for the day and the screaming was phenomenal.

"What do you suggest then?"

"I dunno." Annette folded her arms. She was 23, but in her fur-lined anorak she could pass for one of the teenagers giving the sulky eye as they drifted past. "But you can't go in there and pretend. Dorothy don't read books or anything, but she's sharp. Not that she'd need to be. People just don't walk into her neighbourhood or anywhere round here and set themselves up."

Oh I don't know. They had just passed plenty of black and Asian teenagers. It was a veritable melting pot as the Chief Super would say.

"You're Northern. You have a big target on you that says 'I'm a mug'. It's not really appropriate." Annette shrugged. "Let me out here. My shift at the Marseille starts soon. Marc, that's Dorothy's third one, gets his knickers in a twist if any of the girls are late."

Once she'd slammed the door Hunt drove on and turned into the wide space of Astley Square, home to Dorothy and her two youngest sons Didier and Achille. For a crime lord she'd obviously resisted the temptation to spend her ill-gotten gains on a gated compound and mansion.

On an earlier drive around the neighbourhood Annette had pointed out the modest brick house, just the same as the others in the rows enclosing the square. Curtains closed on all the windows that faced the street. "And that's where her ex-husband Noel lives. He's so nice. Still runs the chippie business over there by her cab business."

Hunt now drew to a halt directly across the road from Stepney Grab-a-Cab. Again, the shop frontage with its greyed-out windows and hint of a messy office beyond didn't exactly sing of luxury.

"What's the next move, boss?" Chris was so excited about their new investigation that he'd been taking detailed notes of Annette's gloomy nay-saying on his new pad.

"She's just lost her eldest lad," Hunt said. "We're the police and we're here to help. Starting with-" He jumped in his seat as a man leapt from nowhere and brought his fist hard down on the bonnet. A face contorted in non-sensical rage leaned in across the front window, only inches from Hunt's.

"What you fucking want?" Thick accent. Looked Arab or Turkish.

"Alright, alright." Hunt started the engine. "Settle down. I'm not from Immigration." He reversed away and watched in the rear-view mirror as the mad bald bastard retreated back into Stepney Grab-a-Cab.

"That'll keep you busy." Hunt carefully placed a stack of files on Drake's in-tray. "Granger'll give you a hand if you need it." He'd meant to leg it before her inevitable explosion, but because her head was still bent over her desk he paused. "Okay then."

Alex finally looked up, face sullen as she gave one of the files a cursory glance and then put the file down with a dismissive drop of her hand.

Again he didn't really like talking to the top of her head. "Well, someone's got to direct proceedings back here."

"Why? Because you and those two..." – she choked back the word 'losers' at the sight of Chris's questioning face – "are off working on some "top-secret" investigation that the rest of us aren't allowed to know about?" When she was angry, the finger waggling appeared again. "It's back to the A team and the B team, is it?"

Hunt tapped his knuckles down on her in-tray. "I just gave you an order."

Keeping a very deliberate eye contact she threw the file onto the floor at his feet. "Get Biro to deal with it." Hey-up, someone whistled from behind him, and glances were exchanged behind them. Alex stood up and pulled on her leather jacket. She'd made it half-way down the corridor toward reception when Hunt bailed her up.

"I don't think so, lady." He pushed the file into her arms, closing her fingers around it. "Do you know what kind of pressure I'm under to put you on cat-rescuing duties after your speech in Brighton?"

"What are you talking about? What are you saying?"

Hunt swallowed the words. Nobody wants you around here any more, you bloody lunatic. If I can keep you out of the way, may be they won't insist you get transferred to Basingstoke. He let go of her hands. "Don't worry about it."

"Worry about it? I'm your DI and you obviously have something pretty interesting going on. And instead of me, you've got Ray and Chris there working on it and you're all really pleased with yourselves, aren't you? What's that supposed to tell me?" She walked a few steps and then arrowed back to him. "I guess, yeah alright, I had an interesting moment there in Brighton, but don't give me this." She waved the file, tried a different tack.

Oh here we go, he thought. Softened her voice like she was shifting down a gear.

"I've helped you with a lot of cases since I got here. And I'm a good DI. I've solved a lot of cases for you."

"I know."

"Well tell me what this is all about?!"

"Christ." Gene felt a headache coming on. "I'm just asking you to-"

"No."

He thumped the wall. "God I put up with a lot of shit from you!" Shook his head to himself as Lewis shuffled past them and disappeared into an interview room. "This conversation is over."

Hard feelings, her lip defiant as she walked away. Yes, hard feelings and the conversation was over.

Within a week of meeting illegal immigrant Alain Michaux, Dorothy Lange had left her husband Noel and the chippie shop they ran together, to move into Alain's bedsitter across the street in Astley Square. She'd come from a large old East End family, one of seven children, and at the age of thirty-four she'd remained childless. But within a year she'd given birth to her first son Evariste and then five more sons nearly every year after.

According to the files Adrien Vanderzee has assembled, Dorothy and Alain had also given birth to a network of illegal businesses. Hunt counted them: financing kidnappings, stand-overs and drug deals, robberies and abductions. When Alain had died three years ago of a heart attack outside his mistress's house it seemed the family's criminal inclinations only intensified.

The problem was, as Hunt looked through the files, the family had so many enemies. As her sons grew to manhood (except for Roger, dead from leukemia at 14), they looked to prove themselves, brutalising ever expanding areas around the radius of their base in Stepney.

Too many sons.

Why had someone killed Charles Michaux, the second son? He'd been found not guilty of assault in the previous year so it could have been a revenge job.

Or a strike at Dorothy? It was well-known that he was the favourite son.

Hunt looked at the photo stapled to the most recent file. Like all of the sons, a bluish pale face and soulful black eyes. Charles had been cultivating a beard and mustache to harden up his soft features.

Dropping the file onto the floor of the Quattro, Hunt got out and walked with Ray to the entrance of Stepney Grab-a-Cab. The sign on the door said 'closed' although it was only seven in the evening. They knocked and entered.

"Hello again." Hunt nodded at the bald mad man who'd left a mark on the Quattro yesterday. Another man sat behind the high counter in the small front room, the telephone receiver cradled in his shoulder. "I would like a word with Dorothy Lange please," he said, holding up his badge.

"Not here." The bald man wasn't a son; his accent was nearly incomprehensible or the wince on Carling's face as he listened told him it was. "You go sit outside and spy again from your car."

Hunt held Ray back as he glanced behind the man on the phone through to the back office, which was lit. The shape of a person was visible through the smoked glass doors. "I can wait inside until Dorothy arrives. Or go to her home. Across the street, isn't it?"

The bald man knocked over a seat in his haste to shoulder-charge them back through the entrance.

"Tut-ku! That's enough!"

Eyebrows raised, Hunt stepped past the man and left his back to Ray. "Wait outside." He pushed open the door to the back room.

"He should be on a leash."

The woman sitting at a table with a cup of tea in front of her held up a smoke to the side of her face. It was Dorothy, but the broiler chicken face from the mug-shot had gone. Now I see what she's been spending her dirty money on: a hell of a lot of cosmetic surgery.

"Tutku's paid to watch out for me," she said. "Among other things." She was still blonde, still a little heavy around the jowls, he thought. The kind who turned very red when she'd had a few drinks. But he had to give her some credit – she'd pulled herself back from the brink of six births' oblivion. Her eyebrows, still thin, were a little more shaped, her face quite smooth, and though plump she had what he'd call a commanding bosom. Still had that short perm though.

"I'm from the Metropolitan Police, Fenchurch East. I was very sorry to hear about your son Charles. We're investigating his death and that of..." He couldn't remember the teenage girl's name and looked to Dorothy. She looked back. She didn't know either. "I know it's only been a few days, but I'd like to talk with you about anyone who might have wanted to harm Charles."

Dorothy turned her attention to the tarot cards she'd laid out on the table a moment before. "I've been doing this for years. My husband Alain took me to a fortune-teller in Marseille on our honeymoon. She told me I'd have many sons and I didn't believe her at the time. I thought I was barren." She took a long drag, a blonde curl flopped over her eye. "I don't know you, and I don't know where Fenchurch East is. I'm not sure why you're coming around here."

"Whether or not you know me," and he held out his badge, "I have a duty to investigate every murder I'm assigned to. Starting with the people in that Mercedes who showed up at your son's burial."

"Yeah," she reflected. "That was rude of them." Then she gave a short, snortish laugh. "You're not from round here, are you? If you can come up with a list of arse-holes that's shorter than a page I'll have a little chat with you." She nodded through the open door. "That poodle of yours is about to be neutered. Tut-ku, it's fine. Let the policemen back out the door."

"You know what I can't stand?" Alex's arms ached from turning the heavy bloody steering wheels. Power-steering can not come soon enough, she thought as she pulled into a park outside the house of an elderly lady who'd had her shopping bags snatched. "It's the looks on Ray and Chris's faces when they come in because they're on the 'A Team'. Like they're the big shots."

"I know, ma'am. Chris is pretty cock-a-hoop about it." Shaz got out and looked at her across the hood. "I've asked him about what it's all about and he just smiles. Made me really mad the other night."

"Like they think that it's the universe restored to its rightful condition. Them working with DCI Hunt … oooh … and us..." She looked up at the old lady's flat. She was watching anxiously from her window.

"I know. It's pretty rough that those rumours have been going around about you … you know about what happened in Brighton." Shaz coloured as Alex coloured. "Sorry, ma'am. Viv told me that some of the brass upstairs have been trying to get DCI Hunt to transfer you out."

"Do you think it's possible?"

"Well I'm sorry, but Chris and Ray are kind of not worried if you go." Shaz nudged her arm affectionately as Alex stepped onto the footpath. "Sorry. They just think the Guv's let you run riot and now it's time for them to get serious."

Stolen shopping trolleys, shop-lifters. Being sent to Basingstoke. Alex shook her head. I am meant to be here. If I get sent away, what would happen to me? She thought of her conversations with Sam Tyler.

I'm meant to be here until I find a way back to you, Molly.

"No one's saying much about it at the club," Annette said as she and Hunt walked out of CID at half-past nine. "Charles didn't come to the club much. It's Evariste and Marc's thing so he left them alone." She was chewing gum thoughtfully. "I've been working at the bar at the club for three months and trying to get close to Evariste. He seems really sweet. I've never seen him turn nasty like Marc does."

"So you haven't heard any rumours from them or the people working in the club about who killed Charles?" Hunt asked.

"Like I say, I've been trying to get close to Evariste, but I'm not actually sure that he's tied up with any crime business at all. I've never heard talk about any of the stuff the rest of the family's into. He just seems to like to sit at the bar or in his office and watch what's happening around him."

"Is he a bit simple?" Chris asked, notepad out, pen ready.

Annette winced. "No. He's just nice."

"Not very helpful to us," Hunt commented. "Can you … you know … have a tilt at the other brother?"

"Marc?" She was shivering. Standing on the winter street in a jean mini-skirt and lacy leggings. "He's got a procession of girlfriends coming through the club. And sooner or later they all end up with a black eye. So no, I don't fancy my chances."

To pass the time until Gene Hunt arrived Lorna was perched on a bar stool and watching Olivia Newton-John and Cliff Richard serenading each other on the television.

Suddenly the wheels are in motion / And I… I'm ready to sail any ocean
Suddenly I don't need the answers / Cos I …I'm ready to take all my chances with you

"Ooh, nice red sequins." Alex nodded up at Olivia Newton-John's dress as she squeezed between two chairs at the bar. "Luigi, can I get a bottle to take upstairs please?" Lorna hadn't turned her eyes from the television or answered. "I hope Cliff and Olivia will end up marrying. Do you think John Travolta will mind?"

Hmm … she noted Lorna's short feathery-cut hair, the grey sweat-shirt material dress, the red plaited head-band. Okay, so making fun of Olivia Newton-John wasn't a conversation starter either. "I have all her albums," she added quietly.

Lorna finally looked at her. "Are you really going to drink that upstairs? Or are you going to sit at the bar and stare at Gene all night again?"

Luigi didn't know where to look as he handed the wine bottle over.

"Umm …" Neither did Alex. "No."

"Good." She would have turned her attention back to Cliff and Olivia except Hunt came through the door with some new woman in a ridiculous denim mini-skirt. Like a big strutting rooster, Alex thought as Hunt took in her and Lorna both seated at the bar.

Olivia Newton-John and some gum-chewing teenager. I cannot compete with that. Alex took her bottle of wine, slowing down as she passed him on the way to her stairs. "Good luck, Gene."