Like a Charm

by Karin Slaughter

  We worked in North London. Or at least he did, and I was assigned there for my probationary period. I would be moving on, but he had been there three years and would be staying. And North London was a great place for numbers. It was a big manor with a lot of crime and a population that was permanently hypersensitive to being treated less well than populations in other parts of London. The local councillors were always in an uproar. They compared their schools to other schools, their transport spurs to other transport spurs. Everything was about perceived disadvantage. If an escalator was out at West Finchley tube station for three days, then they'd better not hear that an escalator had been fixed in two days down at Tooting Bec. That kind of thing was the birth of the numbers, Cameron told me. Because stupid, dull administrators learned to counter the paranoid arguments with numbers. No, they would say, the Northern Line is actually 63 per cent on time up here, and only 61 per cent on time down there.

  So, they would say, shut up.

  It wasn't long before police work fell in with the trend. It was inevitable. Everything started being measured. It was an obvious defensive tactic on the part of our bosses. Average response time following a 999 call? Eleven minutes in Tottenham, Madam Councillor, versus twelve minutes in Kentish Town. Said proudly, with a blank-but-smug expression on our bosses' meaty faces. Of course, they were lying. The Kentish Town bosses were lying too. It was a race towards absurdity. I once joked to Cameron that pretty soon we would start to see negative response times. Like yes, Madam Councillor, that 999 call was answered eleven minutes before it was made. But Cameron just stared at me. He thought I had lost it. He was far too serious on the subject to countenance such a blatant mistake, even in jest.

  But certainly he admitted that numbers could be massaged.

  He collected massage examples like a connoisseur. He observed some of them from afar. The 999 stuff, for instance. He knew how the books were cooked. Switchboard operators were required to be a little inexact with their time-keeping. When it was noon out there in the real world, it was four minutes past noon inside the emergency switchboard. When a sector car was dispatched to an address, it would radio its arrival when it was still three streets away. Thus, a slow twenty-minute response time went into the books as a decent twelve minutes. Everybody won.

  His approach to his own numbers was more sophisticated.

  His major intellectual preoccupation was parsing the inconvenient balance between his productivity and his clearance rate. For any copper, the obvious way to enhance his clearance rate was to accept no cases at all, except the solid gold slam-dunks that had guaranteed collars at the end of them. He explained it like a Zen master: Suppose you have only one case a year. Suppose you solve it. What's your clearance rate? One hundred per cent! I knew that, of course, because I was comfortable with simple arithmetic. But just for fun I said, OK, but suppose you don't solve it? Then your clearance rate is zero! But he didn't get all wound up like I thought he would. Instead, he beamed at me, like I was making progress. Like I already knew the dance steps. Exactly, he said. You avoid the cases you know you can't solve, and you jump all over the cases you know you can solve.

  I should have spotted it right then. The cases you know you can solve. But I didn't spot it. I was still inside the box. And he didn't give me much time to think, because he rushed straight on to the main problem, which was productivity. Certainly major points could be scored for a 75 per cent clearance rate. That was obvious. But if you achieved that mark by clearing three cases out of four, you lost major points for a lack of productivity. That was obvious, too. Four cases a year was absurdly low. Forty cases a year was low. In North London at that time, each detective was looking at hundreds of cases a year. That was Ken Cameron's big problem. The balance between productivity and clearance rate. Good productivity meant a bad clearance rate. A good clearance rate meant bad productivity. He said to me, See? Like the weight of the world was on his shoulders. Although that was a misinterpretation on my part. He was really saying: So I'm not such a bad guy, doing what I'm doing. I should have seen it. But I didn't.

  Then, still in his Zen master mode, he told me a joke. Two guys are in the woods. They see a bear coming. 'Run!' says the first guy. 'That's ridiculous,' the second guy says. 'You can't run faster than a bear.' 'I don't need to run faster than the bear,' the first guy answers. 'I only need to run faster than you.' I had heard the joke before, many times. I suppose I paused a moment to remember who had told it to me last. So I didn't react the way Cameron wanted me to. I saw him thinking fast track training college wanker. Then he regrouped and explained his point. He wasn't looking for extremely high numbers in and of themselves. He was just looking to beat the guy in second place. That's all. By a point or two, which was all that was necessary. Which he could do while maintaining an entirely plausible balance between his clearance rate and his productivity.

  Which he could do. I should have asked, how exactly? He was probably waiting for me to ask. But I didn't.

  I found out how the day I met a prostitute called Kelly Key and a madman called Mason Mason. I met them separately. Kelly Key first. It was one of those perceived disadvantage things. Truth was, North London had a lot of prostitution, but not nearly as much as the West End, for instance. It tended to be of a different nature, though. It was definitely more in-your-face. You saw the hookers. Up west, they were all inside, waiting by the phone. So I was never really sure exactly what the locals were up in arms about. That their hookers were cheaper? That they wanted prettier girls? Or what? But whatever, there was always some street-clearing initiative going on, usually in the northern reaches of Islington and all over Haringey. Working girls would be dragged in. They would sit in police stations, looking completely at home and completely out of place all at the same time.

  One morning we got back from the canteen and found Kelly Key waiting. Ken Cameron evidently took a snap decision and decided to use her to teach me all kinds of essential things. He took me aside and started to explain. First, we were not going to write anything down. Writing something down would put her in the system, which would aid our productivity, but which would damage our clearance rate, because solicitation cases were very hard to make. But, the longer we concealed our indifference, the more worried old Kelly would get, which would result in some excellent freebies after we finally let her go. A cop who pays for sex, Cameron told me, is a very bad cop indeed.

  Bad cop. I suppose, in a relative way.

  So I watched while Cameron harassed Kelly Key. It was late morning, but she was already dressed in her hooker outfit. I could see a lot of leg and a lot of cleavage. She wasn't dumb enough to offer anything off her own bat, but she was heavily into doing the Sharon Stone thing from Basic Instinct. She was crossing and uncrossing her legs so fast I could almost feel the disturbance in the air. Cameron was enjoying the interview. And the actual view, I suppose. I could see that. He was totally at his ease. He had the upper hand, so definitively it was just an absolute fact. He was a big man, fleshy and solid in that classic police-man way. He was probably forty-something, although it's hard to be precise with guys who have that sort of tight pink flesh on their faces. But he had his size, and his badge, and his years in, and together they made him invulnerable. Or together they had, so far.

  Then Mason Mason was brought in. We still had an hour of fun to go with Kelly, but we heard a disturbance at the front desk. Mason Mason had been arrested for urinating in public. At that time we called the uniformed coppers woollies, because of their wool uniforms, and on the face of it the woollies could handle public urination on their own, even if they wanted to push the charge upwards towards gross indecency. But Mason Mason had been searched and found with a little more folding money in his pocket than street people usually carry. He had £90 on him, in new tenners. So the woollies brought him to us, in case we might want to try a theft charge, or mugging, or even robbery with violence, because maybe he had pushed someone around to get the cash. It might be a slam-dunk. The woollies w
eren't dumb. They knew how we balanced clearance rate with productivity, and they were self-interested too, because although individual detectives competed among themselves, there was also an overall station number, which helped everybody. There was a number for everything.

  So at that point Cameron put Kelly Key on the back burner and Mason Mason on the front. He took me aside to explain a few things. First, Mason Mason was the guy's actual name. It was on his birth certificate. It was widely believed that his father had been drunk or confused or both at the Registry Office and had written Mason in both boxes, first name and surname. Second, Mason wasn't pissing in public because he was a helpless drunk or derelict. In fact, he rarely drank. In fact, he was pretty harmless. The thing was, although Mason had been born in Tottenham – in a house very near the Spurs ground – he believed he was American, and believed he had served in the United States Marine Corps, as part of Force Recon, who called themselves the Snake Eaters. This, Cameron said, was both a delusion and an unshakeable conviction. North London was full of dedicated Elvis impersonators, and country and western singers, and Civil War re-enactors, and Omaha Beach buffs, and vintage Cadillac drivers, so Mason's view of himself wasn't totally extraordinary. But it led to awkwardness. He believed that the North London streets were in fact part of the ruined cityscape of Beirut, and that to step into the rubble and take a leak against the shattered remains of a building was all part of a Marine's hard life. And he was always collecting insignias and badges and tattoos. He had snake tattoos all over his body, including one on his chest, along with the words Don't Tread On Me.

  After absorbing all this information I glanced back at Mason and noticed that he was wearing a single snake earring, in his left ear. It was a fat little thing, all in heavy gold, quite handsome, quite tightly curled. It had a tiny gold loop at the top, with a non-matching silver hook through it that went up and through his pierced lobe.

  Cameron noticed it, too.

  'That's new,' he said. 'The Snake Eater's got himself another bauble.'

  Then his eyes went blank for a second, like a TV screen changing channels.

  I should have seen it coming.

  He sent Kelly Key away to sit by herself and started in on Mason. First he embarrassed him by asking routine questions, starting with a request that he should state his name.

  'Sir, the Marine's name is Mason, sir,' the guy said, just like a Marine.

  'Is that your first or last name?'

  'Sir, both, sir,' the guy said.

  'Date of birth?'

  Mason reeled off day, month, year. It put him pretty close to what I guessed was Cameron's age. He was about Cameron's size, too, which was unusual for a bum. Mostly they waste away. But Mason Mason was tall and heavily built. He had hands the size of Tesco chickens and a neck that was wider than his head. The earring looked out of place, all things considered, except maybe in some kind of a pirate context. But I could see why the woollies thought that robbery with violence might fly. Most people would hand over their wad to Mason Mason, rather than stand and fight.

  'Place of birth?' Cameron asked.

  'Sir, Muncie, Indiana, sir,' Mason said.

  The way he spoke told me he was clearly from London, but his faux-American accent was pretty impressive. Clearly he watched a lot of TV and spent a lot of time in the local multiplexes. He had worked hard to become a Marine. His eyes were good, too. Flat, wary, expressionless. Just like a real jarhead's. I guessed he had seen Full Metal Jacket more than once.

  'Muncie, Indiana,' Cameron repeated. 'Not Tottenham? Not North London?'

  'Sir, no sir,' Mason barked. Cameron laughed at him, but Mason kept his face blank, just like a guy who had survived boot camp.

  'Military service?' Cameron asked.

  'Sir, eleven years in God's own Marine Corps, sir.'

  'Semper Fi?'

  'Sir, roger that, sir.'

  'Where did you get the money, Mason?'

  It struck me that when a guy has the same name first and last, it's impossible to come across too heavy. For instance, suppose I said hey, Ken, to Cameron? I would sound friendly. If I said hey, Cameron, I would sound accusatory. But it was all the same to Mason Mason.

  'I won the money,' he said. Now he sounded like a sullen Londoner.

  'On a horse?'

  'On a dog. At Harringay.'

  'When?'

  'Last night.'

  'How much?'

  'Ninety quid.'

  'Marines go dog racing?'

  'Sir, Recon Marines blend in with the local population.' Now he was a jarhead again.

  'What about the earring?' Cameron asked. 'It's new.'

  Mason touched it as he spoke.

  'Sir, it was a gift from a grateful civilian.'

  'What kind of civilian?'

  'A woman in Kosovo, sir.'

  'What did she have to be grateful about?'

  'Sir, she was about to be a victim of ethnic cleansing.'

  'At whose hands?'

  'The Serbs, sir.'

  'Wasn't it the Bosnians?'

  'Whoever, sir. I didn't ask questions.'

  'What happened?' Cameron asked.

  'There was social discrimination involved,' Mason said. 'People considered rich were singled out for special torment. A family was considered rich if the wife owned jewellery. Typically the jewellery would be assembled and the husband would be forced to eat it. Then the wife would be asked if she wanted it back. Typically she would be confused and unsure of the expected answer. Some would say yes, whereupon the aggressors would slit the husband's stomach open and force the wife to retrieve the items herself.'

  'And you prevented this from happening?'

  'Me and my men, sir. We mounted a standard fire-and-manoeuvre encirclement of a simple dwelling and took down the aggressors. It was a modest household, sir. The woman owned just a single pair of earrings.'

  'And she gave them to you.'

  'Just one, sir. She kept the other one.'

  'She gave you an earring?'

  'In gratitude, sir. Her husband's life was saved.'

  'When was this?'

  'Sir, our operational log records the engagement at 0400 last Thursday.'

  Cameron nodded. He left Mason Mason at the desk and pulled me away into the corner. We competed for a minute or two with all the one-sandwich-short-of-a-picnic metaphors we knew. One brick shy of a load, not the sharpest knife in the drawer, that kind of thing. I felt bad about it later. I should have seen what was coming.

  But Cameron was already into another long and complicated calculation. It was almost metaphysical in its complexity. If we logged another case today, our productivity number would rise. Obviously. If we broke it, our clearance rate would rise. Obviously. Question was, would our clearance rate rise faster than our productivity number? Basically, was it worth it? The equation seemed to me to require some arcane calculus, which was beyond me, and I was a fast track training college wanker. But Cameron seemed to have a handy rule of thumb. He seemed to suggest that it's always worth logging a case if you know you're going to break it. At the time I suspected that was a non-mathematical superstition, but I couldn't prove it. Still can't, actually, without going to night school. But back then I didn't argue the arithmetic. I argued the facts instead.

  'Do we even have a case?' I asked.

  'Let's find out,' he said.

  I imagined he would send me out for an Evening Standard, so we could check the greyhound results from Harringay. Or he would send me to wade through incident reports, looking for a stolen snake earring from last Thursday night. But he did neither thing. He walked me back to Kelly Key instead.

  'You work hard for your money, right?' he said to her.

  I could see that Kelly didn't know where that question was going. Was she being sympathized with, or propositioned? She didn't know. She was in the dark. But like all good whores everywhere, she came up with a neutral answer.

  'It can be fun,' she said. 'With some men.'

 
She didn't add men like you. That would have been too blatant. Cameron might have been setting a trap. But the way she smiled and touched his forearm with her fingertips left the words It can be fun with men like you hanging right there in the air. Certainly Cameron heard them, loud and clear. But he just shook his head, impatiently.

  'I'm not asking for a date,' he said.

  'Oh,' she said.

  'I'm just saying, you work hard for your money.'

  She nodded. The smile disappeared and I saw reality flood her face. She worked very hard for her money. That message was unmistakable.

  'Doing all kinds of distasteful things,' Cameron said.

  'Sometimes,' she said.

  'How much do you charge?'

  'Two hundred for the hour.'

  'Liar,' Cameron said. 'The twenty-two-year-olds up west charge two hundred for the hour.'

  Kelly nodded.

  'Fifty for a quickie,' she said.

  'How about thirty?'

  'I could do that.'

  'How would you feel if a punter ripped you off?'

  'Like he didn't pay?'

  'Like he stole ninety quid from you. That's like not paying four times. You end up doing him for nothing, and you end up doing the previous three guys for nothing too, because now that money's gone.'

  'I wouldn't like it,' she said.

  'Suppose he stole your earring, as well?'

  'My what?'

  'Your earring.'

  'Who?'

  Cameron looked across the room at Mason. Kelly Key followed his gaze.

  'Him?' she said. 'I wouldn't do him. He's mad.'