IV

A tip about the two missing Russian sailors had come in from one of Hunt's snitches and the team now fanned out across the docks at Woolwich. Biro examining a pile of old rubble for half an hour, a fag hanging by spittle alone from the corner of his mouth. Lewis sulking as he kicked a can along an empty stretch of grass between two warehouses.

Chris stepped off one of the many ships he'd boarded that morning. It was getting on for midday. He handed Hunt a plastic bag. "Found some weird looking mushrooms, but no one's talking about them missing Russkies. They're rude buggers – shouldn't have to let them into the country if they don't want to answer you back in yer own language."

Hunt squinted as the sun emerged in the low clouded sky. For some reason a helicopter kept buzzing overhead and he could have done without the constant sound of ravenous gulls fighting over a bag of chips. It was a Friday and the docks at Woolwich had the current of people going about their business in haste, anticipating the weekend calm ahead. "I'm about had it with getting the arse from these people." In one morning of canvassing the area – thoroughly, calmly and methodically as he'd planned it in his mind – he'd met more bloody Russians than any Englishman in his home country should have to.

"Good man, Chris." Gene patted him about the back roughly and turned to beckon Granger back to him. Drake had joined them and was sauntering along with Shaz – deep in conversation as they pulled a reluctant teenage boy along with them.

You look rough, he thought as he surveyed Alex from behind his sunglasses. She hadn't come into work that morning so she must have read the note on her desk from Granger that directed her to Woolwich.

Jimmy handed him some notes he'd taken in conversation with a wino who dossed in one of the falling-down warehouses along the docks. "What's this?"

"The chap said there's been a lot of new people along the docks lately. The Russian fellas been stirring it up and getting into difficulties with their managers. He says there was a major rumble a couple of days ago between the Sovs and a bunch of Scandis off the cod boats."

Hunt read through the notes. "Jimmy, you're 39 and you can't spell Norway. That's fucking poor. Now who's this little sod?"

"We found him hiding in the hold of that Shangri-La boat over there?" Shaz pointed back down the line of hulks swaying against their moorings. "Do you think he fits the description? He don't have long hair like in the photo though."

The youth was indeed sporting a number one, but Hunt checked the photo ID for Ilya Solovyov and there was a match in the wan skin, dark lashes and in the pale blue eyes – same expression of alarm in them. Ilya's skin was so translucent you could see every vein in his neck.

"Bet you wish you were old enough to grow a beard, son. Now where's that trouble-making companion of yours? We've been looking for Arkady all week and Chris here is starting to smell like mackerel." Don't speak English? He got no reply from the teenager and so he motioned to Jimmy to put him in the squad car.

Alex and Shaz stood a little away as they continued the plodding search of the moored vessels. Of course Alex had only just joined them, cagey as to where she'd been that morning. Fresh in her head was the moment she'd broken into Evan's house. Stood in her own childhood front room again. This time she didn't walk up the stairs to her bedroom and pick through the memories. No, she had given herself only minutes to plant a bug on Evan's phone and leave.

"Gawd, ma''am. I hope we can get this search done and not have to come back here." Shaz had broken up two fights already that morning. Her uniform would need dry-cleaning, thanks to a flying bloody tooth.

Alex yawned and nodded sympathetically, hand over mouth.

"Did you not get any sleep?"

It wasn't the sleep, Alex thought. It was the dreams and for some reason she turned and found Hunt staring – staring as if he'd bloody been there. But you were. She spun on her heels at the sound of Ray – Ray shouting and a couple of men hurrying after him, also shouting. Gesturing too.

Ray had finally flushed out the crew boss for all these Russian vessels from their warehouses and he wasn't happy to have the Met crawling all over the docks.

"Very funny," Hunt said, poking the man in his chest. "Didn't we come into your office just an hour ago and you pretended you couldn't understand a word I was saying."

"We talked to your manager," the man spit out, his Russian accent strong, but his point clear. The other man was obviously paid protection and watched without emotion. "He promised us that you would be discreet. This fool –" the fool was Ray –"turned upside down a shipment that we promised would be in Birmingham tonight."

"It were like turning a barrel of rats. The Sovs all scuttered for it." Ray lit a fag and paced around him. "You told us a whole bunch of lies. Fuck's sake." Fuck's sake. You didn't get problems like this in Manchester. Why had Hunt brought them down here?

"I had your word..."

'Not mine!"

"…not disturb anything!" It was almost like the Russian was looking for some contract Paulson had signed. Hunt's blood was boiling, Alex could tell. She stepped in, seeing that it was about to turn very ugly – hands up in a propitiatory manner. "Sir, we just want to find the two men you contacted us about. If they are missing they may be hurt. Or they may have just run away, in which case we can't have them illegally in the country."

The man was obviously unused to dealing with women police officers – certainly not beautiful women. He remained silent for a moment. Then he swore and pushed her aside, making for his Rover.

"I like those gotcha moments best of all."

The moment Lewis had sprung the second sailor – the older man called Arkady Levitsky – from rooms above an outboard motor repair shop. It had taken the rest of the afternoon, but they'd got their man.

"Gotcha!" Ray repeated, smiling as he hauled Levitsky into the interrogation room to join Ilya Solovyov.

Alex barred the door before Hunt could follow them in. "You're not going to do that –" she nodded down at his clenched fists – "medieval stuff. They look like two scared men. One of them's just a boy."

"Them and their bum-fighting friends have turned that dock in Woolwich into the battle of fucking Stalingrad and I'm sick of it." But he stayed still.

"Gene." She suddenly heard the air-conditioning above them churn and groan to a halt. It cranked back into life, but the air grew stale and hot as she spoke. "Give them some decent food and ask them for their side of this. You saw that man at the docks. He wanted us all gone."

He glanced into the room – at the older man slumped in his chair, ignoring Chris's offer of a cigarette. The teenager, Ilya, was watching Hunt back. Expecting the worst.

"Alright, alright, Red Sonja. Ray, get them a pork pie sandwich each." He looked her way, lowered his voice. "Come and have a drink in my office."

Alex hadn't been in his office in weeks and she took a second before plonking herself down at the edge of his desk, glancing at the dust patterns behind the computer.

He poured her a drink. It had grown dark outside and the other members of the team drifted out the doors slowly – they'd waited a bit to see if he'd order them down to Luigi's and then trudged away to their buses or trains to Clapham.

"Thanks." Alex clinked the whiskey glass against his; some spilled out and she commented about the "ridiculously large amount".

Ah yeah. He fiddled with some papers. Having her in his office really did feel like they were doing something wrong. The place was no doubt bugged, and he saw her open her mouth to speak and then remember that fact.

Hunt thought momentarily about whether he'd attempt some small talk about the two Russians or just stare at her. Brazen it out. Why not? He felt a sour pleasure for having shown so much restraint these past few days as he came and went past her desk and she came and went out of the office as she liked, acting like her old mysterious self. A less sour pleasure too because sometimes he caught her looking at him from her desk with that intention in her eyes as if she wanted to speak.

A couple of times it had been close. CS Paulson introducing him to a new DI working over at Chigwell who wanted his help, and he'd shook the man's hand, all the time watching as she walked down the corridor before them, in that way she had when she nowhere specific to be. Her hips swayed. Just the way she'd turned her head briefly to the side to glance through the windows to the carpark below ... she'd sat on the bed in the Throstle, naked with the sheets around her waist, and turned that way to him as he put a fevered hand on her shoulder.

All she'd done was look down briefly into the carpark to see if it was raining, but it felt like the strike of a match.

"The air-conditioning's not working again, is it?" Alex could actually feel the room grow hotter as she shifted on the edge of the desk and noted the condensation on the whisky glasses. Gene toyed with a manila folder, knowing she was watching. Finally he opened it and showed her a crumpled piece of paper inside it. The only thing written on the paper was a telephone number. "Recognise it?"

Alex had always had a good memory for numbers, but this one meant nothing. Later, after she had put down the glass and gone from his office with a faint exasperation that he done nothing more than discuss the issue with the sailors, she dialled the number. Turned away from the lights of Hunt's office with the phone against her neck and waited while it rang.

"Why are you so predictable?" he whispered into her hair as he cut the call off and removed the receiver gently. "Your phone is bugged too."

Gene. He had pulled on his coat and walked through the swinging doors. Without a word, Alex followed him down the corridor past the interrogation room where Ilya sat looking at his dinner.