by Paul Gitsham
Warren paused for a beat. It was clear that Meegan was a regular drug abuser and it was taking its toll on his mental stability. He wondered what he’d get out of the man.
Finally, Meegan’s face took on the sullen tone of a teenager. As exasperating as it was, Warren forced himself to remember that the man had just lost his older brother.
‘Look, Jimmy, help me put together a timeline here. Let’s figure out your brother’s last moves and then we can work out what happened and bring whoever killed him to justice.’ He locked eyes with Meegan. ‘I know you don’t believe me but I promise you I do want to find your brother’s killer. I’m a CID officer, working the murder squad. Your brother was a victim and I will find justice for him.’
The silence stretched between them. Would the rhetoric persuade Meegan to cooperate or would it push him further away?
Eventually, he nodded.
‘Take me through the day as it happened.’
The story was essentially the same as that told before, with the BAP scattering after the police line was breached, Jimmy Meegan and Goldie Davenport going one direction and Tommy Meegan and Bellies Brandon the other, before they too split.
Warren was suddenly struck with the thought that perhaps if Tommy hadn’t abandoned his friend, he wouldn’t have been in the alleyway on his own… karma?
‘So you and Mr Davenport must have emerged onto Ackers Street at about the same time as Tommy?’
‘No, we had a bit of a head start.’
‘And you didn’t see Tommy come out?’
For the first time since the interview had started, Warren saw something other than anger and contempt in his eyes.
‘Yeah. I never saw him again.’ He put his head in his hands, hiding his face. Warren waited patiently. He knew better than to offer the man tissues or even acknowledge his distress.
Finally, with a loud sniff, Meegan straightened.
‘Did you see any other possible witnesses along the way?’
Meegan started to shake his head, before suddenly pausing. ‘Hang on, we wasn’t the only ones in Stafford Road.’
Warren raised an eyebrow.
‘Yeah, I remember now. There was some bloke hanging around the back of the shop next to the key-cutter’s.’
‘The Starbucks?’
‘Yeah, must have been.’
Warren made a note to prioritise any CCTV from the rear of the coffee shop and other businesses along Stafford Road.
‘Can you describe this person.’
‘Skinny, Asian, wearing a black turban.’ Meegan’s eyes flashed dangerously. ‘There’s your suspect, DCI Jones. Round up all the Pakis, you’ll solve it before sundown.’
Warren ignored the man’s language.
‘Can you remember anything else about him?’
Meegan thought for a moment, before shaking his head.
‘OK, let’s go back to The Feathers, just so I have the complete timeline sorted. When did you arrive?’
Meegan shrugged. ‘Dunno, I didn’t check the time.’
‘Was the pub empty or were there others already present?’
‘We were pretty much first.’
‘And did the rest of your friends arrive soon after?’
‘Yeah, most of them.’ He grinned. ‘A few got a bit lost on the way, but they made it there eventually with the help of a few friendly natives.’
According to the switchboard at least a half-dozen callers had complained about intimidation and foul language as the BAP supporters made their way to their rendezvous point. However, that had been the least of the police’s worries by that time, with riot control officers still arresting those protestors who had yet to disperse peacefully and, on the other side of town, uniformed officers hastily dismantling roadblocks to make way for fire engines rushing towards the Islamic Centre.
‘Why The Feathers?’
‘Why not? It’s a free country. Besides, I have a thing for overcooked chicken Kiev.’
‘Did anyone not make it to The Feathers on time?’
‘Bellies, but he got there in the end.’
Warren paused for a moment.
‘When did you realise your brother was missing?’
‘I figured Bellies was late ’cos he’d gone back to find him. When Bellies said he hadn’t seen him, I tried to phone him, but he didn’t pick up.’
‘What time would you say that was?’
‘Probably about four.’
‘So what then? Weren’t you worried?’
Meegan shrugged. ‘Not really. He’s a big boy. I figured he’d either decided to lie low somewhere or he’d been nicked.’
‘And so you kept on drinking?’
‘Thirsty work.’ Meegan looked away. Was that a hint of shame?
‘Some of the lads kept on calling him,’ he continued, ‘but it kept on going to voicemail. By about five-thirty we reckoned he’d been nabbed and we’d hear from him later.’
‘When did you hear about your brother’s death?’
Meegan looked down at the table again, and Warren worried that he wasn’t going to answer. Eventually, he started to speak, his voice soft.
‘About eight o’clock, four coppers came into the bar. We assumed they were there to escort us out.’ He smiled humourlessly. ‘Perhaps give us a bit more aggro before we left. We’d already given up on Tommy, the coach was waiting to take us home. I’d left a message telling him to call me when the pigs let him go and that he’d have to crash at Mum’s if they didn’t keep him overnight.’
He paused as he remembered.
‘They knew exactly who they were looking for. They came straight for me.’
For the first time since the interview had begun, Meegan paused and reached for the polystyrene water cup.
‘They asked if I had seen Tommy. I said no, obviously.’
Whether he meant that obviously he hadn’t seen his brother, or that he’d have denied seeing him even if he was sitting next to him, just because, Warren was unsure.
‘They asked for a private word and I said that anything they had to say to me, they could say in front of my esteemed colleagues.’
He took another sip of water.
‘And then they told me.’
Chapter 11
‘Well, that was enlightening.’ Warren sat opposite Theo Garfield, who’d been watching the interviews via CCTV. He felt exhausted. He’d had no idea how hard it would be to maintain his professional detachment, or to empathise with the victim. He said as much.
Garfield grimaced. ‘Par for the course, Warren, I’m afraid. I’d offer to help, but none of them know me and I need to keep it that way. You get used to the language eventually. They’re just words.’ He leant back against the wall. ‘It’s the hatred I struggle with. I really do think that there is something fundamentally wrong with these guys. They need that hate. There has to be something for them to direct their anger towards, it’s cathartic. If they didn’t have a target, they’d explode.’
Warren looked at him thoughtfully. ‘So you think the racism and bigotry is secondary to their need to let out their frustrations?’
Garfield shrugged. ‘I really don’t know. I’m not a psychologist, but I reckon they’ve some sort of innate tribalism. If you brought them up from birth in an environment where they never met others with different-coloured skin or from a different culture, they’d divide the world by eye colour. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that these guys are fanatical football supporters. Often they don’t even support their local team; they almost arbitrarily pick a team who they have no personal connection with and take part in the most extreme violence in the name of that club, literally risking life and limb. It makes no rational sense.’
Warren sighed. ‘These guys aren’t the biggest arseholes I’ve ever interviewed, but they’re close. Still, I got a few leads and their stories pretty much match, so either they were in it all together or they’re telling the truth. What about you? Anything useful?’
Garfield shrugge
d again. ‘I think it was interesting that they largely only had a go at Muslims. These guys are full-spectrum far-right, they usually bring in Jews, blacks, Asians and homosexuals whilst they’re at it.’
He scratched his chin. ‘It confirms something I’ve suspected for a while. Ever since Tommy Meegan took over the BAP, we’ve seen a ratchetting up of the anti-Muslim rhetoric, at the expense of some of the other crap. That might just be because of recent events; Islamic State, Boko Haram and Al Quaeda are stealing all the headlines lately.’ He shifted his stance. ‘The thing is, forget idiots like Bellies Brandon and Goldie Davenport, they’re just foot soldiers who couldn’t find their arse with both hands. The brains are people like Tommy Meegan. He definitely wasn’t an idiot. He knew the way the wind was blowing.
‘Old school racism against blacks or other minorities just because they look or speak differently hasn’t completely died out, but it’s generally social suicide if you express it publicly. When was the last time you saw anyone admit to owning a Bernard Manning DVD? Overt homophobia is also a no-no. Plenty of prejudice still exists, but opponents of gay marriage are seen as out of touch and embarrassing in this country; if the thought of gay sex is icky to you, you keep it to yourself. You can’t even criticise Israel without making it clear that you aren’t an anti-Semite first.
‘We’ve seen it in the evolution of organisations like the BNP; out go the jackboots and the Combat 18 jackets, in come the sharp suits and the election manifestos. Until UKIP started stealing their thunder, they even had some success. Nick Griffin was invited on the BBC’s Question Time, remember – mind you, he got such a spanking, it probably did him more harm than good.’
‘And you think the BAP are going that way?’
‘Well, quite the opposite, we thought. The BAP were supposedly one of a number of ragtag groups formed out of the old guard who didn’t want to go down the political route. They were proud of who they were. I have to confess, our intelligence on them was pretty slim until recently, much of the information we had on the key players came from their previous associations with more established groups, or through other sources such as criminal records.’
‘So what changed?’
‘The rhetoric on social media, primarily. We were already watching Islamophobic groups, such as Britain First, and when we saw the BAP starting to share followers and content, we started to pay attention.
‘At first, we saw them as a bit of a joke. The usual muddled neo-Nazi rhetoric, wrapped up with so-called British patriotism – a ridiculous contradiction if you think about it too hard, citing Winston Churchill in one breath and praising everything he stood against in the next. Their philosophy varied depending on who was in charge of their Facebook page that day. But when Tommy Meegan became their de facto leader, that all changed.
‘Tommy recognised that Islam is fair game nowadays and he started playing on those fears, whilst also moderating their public image. He understood that it’s about far more than how many troglodytes you can pack in a coach and drive to a rally. It’s about how many retweets or likes you get on social media.
‘Protests against so-called super mosques are just a bone to keep the hardcore onside and stop them pissing off to join somebody else. Tommy Meegan knew that he’d never effect social change that way. But a leopard doesn’t change its spots and he and his brother were nasty, violent pieces of work. Wherever the hell he is now, I’ll bet Tommy Meegan is loving every minute of this; his death could lead to the sort of race war he could only dream of in his lifetime.’
Warren needed to change the subject.
‘So how did you get into this game?’
Garfield pointed to himself.
‘Well, when you’re the colour I am, growing up in Liverpool in the Seventies and Eighties, racial politics is hardly something that passes you by.’ He held out his hand. ‘This sexy brown is the result of a white mum and a black dad.
‘Now I know what you’re thinking: I was brought up by a single mum on a housing estate in Toxteth with no opportunities and no job prospects until I decided to turn my back on a life of crime and either enlist in the army or join the police.’
Warren said nothing; he’d not really given it much thought, but it was obvious Garfield enjoyed telling the story.
‘Actually, it was far worse than that. I was born into a loving family in the Wirral – that’s the posh end of Liverpool – you know, indoor toilets and electric lighting,’ Warren smiled; he’d heard the exact same joke told about parts of Coventry many times. ‘My father was second-generation Jamaican and only retired as a consultant gynaecologist last year. He was the most well-spoken man in the street. My mother is still an education officer for the council and I’ve never heard them exchange an angry word. They sent me to the best school in the area and I went to university in Manchester and got a first in History.’
‘Oh.’ Warren wasn’t entirely sure where this was going.
‘Mum and Dad did their best to shield me from everything of course, but they couldn’t be there in the playground at school, or on the bus on the way home. It got a bit better when I joined the local sixth-form college; I wasn’t the only mixed-race kid anymore and most of the real racists never made it that far.
‘By the time I went to university, I figured the worst of it was over.’ He snorted. ‘The first time somebody threw a stone at me and shouted at me to “fuck off home”, I pledged not to wear my Liverpool shirt in Manchester again. The second time I heard it, I wasn’t wearing my shirt and the penny dropped.
‘I phoned my parents and asked right out how bad the racism had really been when I was a kid. I was shocked by their response. Dad had always said he didn’t like golf, so he didn’t play with the other consultants. In reality, he was never invited. When he took over the running of some clinics, about a dozen patients asked to be transferred, claiming that they weren’t comfortable being examined by a man. Dad’s predecessor had been an old, white guy.
‘I remember our car was always being vandalised. My parents shrugged it off; car crime in Liverpool was an epidemic. I don’t know if I was naive or in denial but I never twigged that ours was the only car in the street that was attacked, and that we were the only non-white family.
‘Nobody was ever racist to Mum’s face, but when I was born she was the only mother in her birthing group who didn’t stay in contact with the rest. At playschool, I was never invited to birthday parties.’
‘So when did you join the police?’
‘After university. I’d joined a couple of protest groups but we never really felt we were achieving anything. Some of my mates wanted to go down the direct-action route – getting stuck in against the BNP – but it didn’t seem the right approach.
‘Then one day we had a talk from a police commander in charge of race relations. Until then, I’d kind of gone along with the idea that the police were almost as bad as the far-right. Full of old-school bigots at the very least willing to turn a blind eye. The Stephen Lawrence inquiry was just wrapping up and the police were being branded as institutionally racist.
‘But I had trouble squaring what I was hearing from this police officer with what I was hearing on the news, and what I was being told by the people I was going on marches with. So in the end I attended one of the force’s recruitment days and decided that whilst the police were far from perfect, it was better to be inside the tent pissing out than outside the tent pissing in.’
‘So how did you end up down here?’
‘Career advancement. I was stuck on sergeant up in Liverpool with no vacancies on the horizon, whilst Hertfordshire was building up its Hate Crime Intelligence Unit. My missus is a schoolteacher and had no particular ties to Liverpool, so we decided to move south.’
The tale sounded familiar to Warren and he said so.
Garfield raised his mug and clinked it with Warren’s. ‘Here’s to Hertfordshire Constabulary and understanding wives!’
Chapter 12
Warren’s conversat
ion with Garfield had given him much to think about. The man’s hypothesis about the BAP’s motivations was intriguing. He looked at his watch. It was already after 9 p.m. The first twenty-four hours were over. Every fibre in his body wanted to go to bed, but he decided to speak to the team one last time before he left. It was a bad habit and his wife would tell him off – that was what email was for, she always said – but experience told him that small, important details that might come out in conversation may not be recorded in an email.
Heading back upstairs, he entered the section of the building allotted to CID. It might have been late on a Sunday evening, but the office was still packed.
Dusk at this time of year was perfectly timed for the candles outside the Islamic Centre to appear on the late-night news. Earlier in the evening Tony Sutton had tuned the wall-mounted screen at the back of the office to BBC News with the sound turned low. Now he turned it up, switching off the garbled automatic subtitles.
The crowd featured in the panning shot had been gathering all afternoon, the pile of flowers and soft toys growing taller by the hour. Numbers had swelled after lunchtime prayers as minibuses from other towns brought in more Muslims to pay their respects. They were soon joined by several dozen members of a local church and a nearby Hindu temple showing solidarity with their Muslim neighbours. By mid-afternoon there were at least three hundred people gathered, the crowd representing a mixture of Muslims and non-Muslims, residents of Middlesbury and those who had travelled from outside. Many carried placards bearing the Twitter hashtag #Justice4Muslims.
‘I don’t know whether to be pleased at the show of unity across so many faith communities or dismayed by the fact that they seem to be united against the police,’ Grayson had muttered before stomping back to his office.
The centre was still an active crime scene and surrounded by tape, however the dozen or so officers policing the crowds that had gathered for the candle-lit vigil were trying to be as unobtrusive as possible. It wasn’t working.
‘Where were you when those animals torched the place?’ yelled a bearded young man into the face of one of the officers standing in front of the entrance to the community centre’s driveway. To her credit, she didn’t so much as flinch. The man was showboating for the TV cameras, who duly obliged by zooming in.
