To Hell in a Handcart

by Richard Littlejohn

  Bingo.

  The safe eased open.

  A Smith & Wesson .38. Police standard issue back in the 1980s, she recalled. A box of ammunition and a firearms certificate.

  But no knife, no documents, no tape.

  Roberta was busting for a piss.

  She went into the downstairs cloakroom and squatted. As she looked up, she could see an assortment of photographs of Mickey French in police uniform, receiving commendations, passing out at Hendon.

  At Tyburn Row.

  The team photo. Mickey, middle row, dead centre. Eric Marsden, front row, extreme left.

  And there she was, in the back row, third from the left. Fresh-faced, probationary WPC Roberta Peel.

  She remembered it being taken. Not long before. Well, not long before. And here she was taking a piss in Mickey French’s downstairs cloakroom, in the middle of a highly irregular search for evidence which could destroy her career.

  Mickey French himself was banged up in a cell on suspicion of murder. And Eric Marsden’s son was on the case.

  Small world.

  It was her world now.

  Running out of time. Try upstairs.

  Kids’ room. Highly unlikely.

  Master bedroom.

  Roberta checked the bedside table. Cufflinks, credit card receipts, petrol bills, business cards. Mickey must sleep this side.

  The drawer below, a couple of novels. Carl Hiaasen, Keith Waterhouse. Box of Kleenex.

  Roberta walked round to the other side of the bed. Top drawer, nail clippers, nail file, old lipsticks.

  Bottom drawer. Locked.

  Roberta went to the dressing table. Make-up, underwear, socks, necklaces, that kind of stuff. At the back of a drawer full of Janet Reger lingerie she found a small key.

  She walked back to the bed and tried the lock.

  It turned.

  Roberta pulled open the drawer. Was this where he kept it?

  She reached inside, took out a box, like a cigar box, and lifted the lid.

  No knife, no papers, no tape.

  Just a magnificent set of vibrators, ranging from twelve inches down to thimble-sized.

  And a tube of KY Jelly.

  Roberta shuddered. She could feel herself moistening.

  She thought fondly of Dixon. Good old Dixon. Hard, shiny, dependable Dixon.

  And Karl Marx.

  She pressed her knees together and drew them up towards her chest.

  Stop it, woman, a voice inside her screamed.

  Roberta snapped out of it. She closed the lid, put the box back in the drawer and locked it. She replaced the key in the underwear drawer and plumped up the duvet where she had been sitting.

  This was getting her nowhere.

  Where else could she look? Where did he keep it? That’s if he really had kept it.

  Five more minutes and the WPC would be getting suspicious.

  Where else was there to look? She checked the bathroom cabinet but knew in advance that would be a non-runner.

  Roberta stood on the small landing. She looked up. A trap door. The loft, of course. It was worth a try.

  She took a chair from the bedroom, stood on it and eased open the hatch. An aluminium sliding ladder dropped down.

  Roberta climbed up the ladder and turned on the light.

  Tea chests, an old train set, suitcases, half-used boxes of floor tiles. Where should she start?

  There were three boxes in one corner, partly covered in sheets and layers of dust. There was dust everywhere.

  In the far corner, there was another chest, behind some paint cans.

  Roberta stooped under the eaves and made her way over. Someone had been here recently. The dust had been disturbed.

  Under some newspapers she found a plastic documents wallet marked ‘Police Federation. Worthing. 1981.’

  Roberta opened the wallet and felt inside.

  A small oblong cassette case. A sheaf of documents. A chamois leather.

  She unrolled the chamois leather. The knife fell out. Trevor Gibbs’s knife. The blade was blunt now. The polished ivory handle was about five inches long and had an unusual ribbed finish, swelling upwards from the blade into a bulbous tip.

  Pay dirt.

  She held the papers up to the light. The juvenile records relating to Gibbs’s arrest.

  Roberta examined the cassette box.

  There was a tape inside.

  On the casing, two words, handwritten.

  Tyburn Row.

  The Holy Grail.

  Roberta’s heart was pounding.

  She hurried down the ladder, switching off the light as she went. She pushed the ladder back in its frame, shut the trap door.

  Roberta carried the chair back into the bedroom and carefully replaced it in the exact spot she had found it.

  As she turned to go, she hesitated.

  Roberta looked out of the bedroom window. The panda car was still there. Her driver was leaning on the Rover, stubbing out a cigarette with his left foot, savouring the final draw. He kept mouthwash and air-freshener in the glove compartment, knowing how much his boss hated even the merest suggestion of stale cigarette smoke.

  She could see the WPC taking two paces forward, two paces back, relieving the tedium.

  Otherwise there was no activity.

  Roberta put the documents wallet with its priceless contents down on the chair and went to the dressing table.

  She retrieved the key from the Janet Reger drawer and unlocked the bedside cabinet.

  Roberta re-examined the vibrators, cosseted in their case like a set of miniature Purdeys.

  She closed the lid and took the Federation wallet from the chair. The knife tumbled onto the duvet. Roberta wrapped the blade in the chamois leather. She lay back on the bed, hoisted her skirt and bit hard on her knuckle to suppress her squeals of triumphant ecstasy.

  Fifty

  Roberta settled back onto the leather rear seat of her official Rover 75, her briefcase beside her.

  ‘Everything OK, ma’am?’ asked her driver.

  ‘Perfect,’ she replied.

  ‘Where to now?’

  ‘Angel Hill. And put the radio on, would you? I’d like to catch the news. And find out what the reptiles have turned up today on this case.’

  ‘I bought a Standard from the newsagents on the corner,’ said the driver, handing her the paper. ‘I thought you might be interested.’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Roberta, scan-reading the first few pages. ‘Nothing much here we don’t know already.’

  As they pulled away from the house, Ricky Sparke’s voice filled the car.

  ‘… that was Squeeze, “Pulling Mussels from a Shell”. You’re listening to a specially extended edition of the Ricky Sparke show on Rocktalk 99FM. You’ll remember that yesterday we broke the news that police were holding an ex-cop, Mickey French, in connection with the shooting of an intruder in the village of Heffer’s Bottom.

  ‘As you have probably heard on our news bulletins today, and as you may have read in your morning newspapers, it has now been confirmed that the dead man is an asylum-seeker from Romania.

  ‘We’ve been getting your reaction all morning. Now Rocktalk 99FM can bring you a world exclusive.

  ‘I’m joined on the line now by the man himself, Mickey French.

  ‘Good morning, Mickey. You‘re live on Rocktalk 99FM.’

  ‘Hello, Ricky. Hello, everyone.’

  Roberta sat bolt upright, almost decapitating herself with her seat belt.

  ‘Turn that up. And pull over,’ she snapped. ‘And get me Angel Hill. Get Marsden. RIGHT NOW!’

  ‘Mickey, before we start, I think I should just make it clear that when I said the other day we were launching a new competition, Shoot a Burglar and Win a Million, I was joking, mate.’

  ‘I hadn’t planned to be the first contestant.’

  ‘Mickey, seriously, everyone’s talking about what happened. Can you tell us about it, in your own words.’

  ‘
I was sitting at home, cleaning my guns, when I heard a crash.’

  ‘Let’s get this clear, Mickey, you’re an ex-cop, right?’ ‘

  Yeah.’

  ‘And you had a licence to keep these guns?’

  ‘Absolutely. They’re perfectly legal.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘I saw this figure advancing towards me in the dark. I feared for my life. Using my police training, I loaded my gun and fired. The intruder, burglar, whatever, spun backwards, stumbled out onto the lawn and fell. I went over to the body, confirmed he was dead and called it in.’

  ‘YOU called the police?’

  ‘Sure. I used to be a police officer. I was comfortable with what I had done. I’m not proud of shooting him, but I do think I used reasonable force in self-defence. I was in my own home at the time and did what I thought, how I had been trained to react, was necessary in the circumstances.’

  Marsden came on the phone.

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’

  ‘Don’t you dare “yes ma’am” me. Are you listening to this?’

  ‘What, ma’am?’

  ‘Your prisoner. Live on the radio.’

  ‘Sorry, ma’am?’ Marsden was confused.

  ‘Mickey French, talking live on Rocktalk 99 F-fucking-M.’ Roberta could swear like a trooper when she had to, for effect. ‘From your police station.’

  Oh, my god.

  ‘Are you sure, ma’am?’

  ‘You think I’m imagining it. Put a stop to it. Immediately.’

  Marsden dropped the phone and rushed off to the custody suite. The interview continued.

  ‘Mickey, tell us why you thought your life was in danger.’

  ‘Threats had been made against me and my family. There have been other incidents at my house.’

  ‘Do you know who was responsible?’

  ‘There’s a camp of pikeys, sorry, travellers, down the road. Been there a coupla months. Nothing but trouble since they moved in. They trashed our house, killed our cat.’

  ‘Your CAT?’

  ‘Yeah. They said it would be me next.’

  ‘Why on earth would they do that, Mickey?’

  ‘I’d had the odd run-in with them.’

  ‘And you thought this intruder was one of them?’

  ‘That was my first reaction.’

  ‘That’s perfectly understandable, Mickey. But we now know that it wasn’t anyone local.’

  ‘So I’ve been informed.’

  ‘Do you know this Gica Dinantu?’

  ‘Never heard of him.’

  ‘Can you give us any good reason why he’d be breaking into your house in the middle of the night?’

  ‘Burglary, I guess.’

  ‘Now, Mickey, I know you’re still at the police station. Have you been charged?’

  ‘No, just cautioned. But they’re talking about murder.’

  ‘MURDER?’

  ‘That’s what they’re saying.’

  ‘I’m sure all our listeners will be shocked to hear that, after what you’ve just told us. Let me ask you this, Mickey. Any regrets about what happened?’

  ‘Of course I regret that someone is dead.’

  ‘But would you do it again?’

  The door of the sergeant’s office burst open and Marsden and three officers stormed in. Marsden grabbed the phone and terminated the call.

  ‘You’re taking the piss, Mickey. You can’t do this,’ he said.

  ‘I just did.’

  ‘You’re in deep shit. Fuck it. I’m in deep shit,’ yelled Marsden. ‘Get him out of here. Back in his cell. And lock it.’

  Marsden glared at the custody sergeant, who glared at Mickey.

  ‘I’ll deal with you later,’ Marsden said to the sergeant. ‘Your job’s on the line here. My fucking job’s on the line here.’

  Mickey looked sheepishly at the sergeant as two burly PCs led him away.

  ‘Sorry, Ted,’ he apologized.

  ‘Just fuck off, Mickey,’ said the sergeant, shaking his head, anticipating his future career prospects as a security guard at the Bluewater Shopping Centre.

  ‘Mickey, hello, Mickey. Mickey, you there? It appears we’ve lost the line to Mickey French. I’m sorry, ladies and gentlemen. But at least he managed to shed some light on what happened.

  ‘You heard him say it, live and exclusive on Rocktalk 99FM. They’re talking murder here.

  ‘How can that be? Whatever happened to an Englishman’s home is his castle? A man has a right to defend himself in his own home.

  ‘If you ask me this, this burglar, this intruder, this asylum-seeker, this CRIMINAL, and that’s what he is, ladies and gentlemen, a CRIMINAL, deserved everything he got. Death by misadventure, maximum, you tell me.

  ‘He was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Tough.

  ‘Call your MP. Get down to Angel Hill nick and demonstrate. Let’s get Mickey out. Let’s strike a blow for Middle England, for justice.

  ‘The Mickey French is Innocent campaign starts right here. Make your voice heard. Register your support.

  ‘Who you gonna call?

  ‘Rocktalk 99FM, that’s who. Rocktalk 99FM, your OFFICIAL Mickey French radio station.’

  Ricky Sparke just put fifty grand on his wages.

  Fifty-one

  Hurricane Roberta hit Angel Hill nick gathering Force Nine and rising.

  ‘What the hell were you thinking of?’ she demanded of the custody sergeant.

  ‘Ma’am. I take full …’ Marsden piped up.

  ‘Damn right, you do, inspector.’

  Oh dear, inspector, was it? Not acting detective chief inspector. Not even acting. Marsden’s sphincter tightened.

  ‘But for the moment, I’d like to hear what the sergeant has to say for himself. I want his last day here to be a happy one,’ said DAC Peel, sitting behind Marsden’s desk.

  ‘Ma’am, Mickey, the prisoner, French, that is, asked to make a phone call. He is entitled, under PACE,’ explained the terrified sergeant.

  ‘Why wasn’t someone with him?’

  ‘We assumed, what with the custody extension and everything, that he had decided to call a solicitor.’

  ‘Did you ask him?’

  The sergeant shuffled and stared at the floor. ‘Not specifically, ma’am.’

  ‘Not specifically?’

  ‘Not at all, ma’am.’

  ‘Why the hell not? You’re supposed to dial the number for him.’

  ‘I know, ma’am. But I thought, in the circumstances, like.’

  ‘What circumstances?’

  ‘Well, you know, with Mickey, the prisoner, being one of us,’ the sergeant said.

  Roberta pushed the chair backwards, stood up and leant forward, hands on the desk. Marsden thought he noticed what looked like a fresh bite mark on her left knuckle.

  ‘Let’s get one thing absolutely straight, so there can be no misunderstanding. Michael Edward French is not, repeat not, one of us. He is entitled to no special privileges, no special treatment. That’s exactly what the critics of the police service are looking for. That’s what I’m doing here. To ensure that French is treated like any other prisoner. We have to be especially sensitive. May I remind you that what we are looking at here is a suspected murder with a possible racial motive. Haven’t any of you out in this god-forsaken backwater even read Macpherson?’

  Marsden cleared his throat. ‘I think I can assure you that as far as the arrest and the procedure are concerned, everything has been done by the book, ma’am.’

  ‘Then what the hell was he doing live on the radio? From inside this police station? What is this – Radio Plod? Dial 999 and ask for Mickey?’

  The sergeant spoke up. ‘We had every reason to believe he was conferring with his solicitor. We had no idea he was ringing the radio station.’

  ‘That’s enough, sergeant. I am viewing this as a serious breach of discipline. You’ve made the Metropolitan Police Service a laughing stock. You are suspended from duty, on full pay, pending a ful
l disciplinary hearing. That will be all.’

  ‘Ma’am,’ said the sergeant, clicking his heels and turning like a dismissed squaddie on his way to the glasshouse.

  Roberta sat down in Marsden’s chair.

  ‘I’m sorry, ma’am. This wasn’t my fault, but it was my responsibility. He was my prisoner. I can only apologize,’ said the acting DCI.

  ‘You can’t be held entirely responsible for the actions of a sloppy custody sergeant,’ said Roberta, her attitude softening.

  ‘Ted’s a good man, ma’am.’

  ‘Ted’s an imbecile, inspector,’ she corrected him. ‘I can see from your initial report and the thoroughness with which you have conducted your inquiries thus far that you can see the wider picture.’

  ‘Just doing my job, ma’am.’

  ‘You appear not to have been affected by sentiment, like some other people.’

  ‘With respect, ma’am, it’s understandable why old hands like Ted would cut Mickey, French, that is, a bit of slack. He was a good copper.’

  ‘I believe your father served with him,’ said Roberta, failing to mention that she, too, had once worked in the same nick as Marsden senior.

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’

  ‘Do you know French?’

  ‘I’ve come across him a couple of times, ma’am. But I wouldn’t say I know him.’

  ‘Let me ask you this, Colin. You don’t mind me calling you Colin, do you?’

  ‘Not at all, ma’am.’

  Roberta could smell the resentment the second she walked into Angel Hill. She needed an ally. Marsden was younger than she’d imagined, quite good-looking, but gone slightly to pot, prematurely aged. It was an occupational hazard. She could spot a CID officer at a hundred paces. They all had that same, untidy round the edges, world-weary look about them. Ground down by the system.

  Marsden seemed different. His paperwork was impeccable, which was a good sign. And he didn’t carry with him the air of defeatism which infected so many detectives.

  ‘Colin, the eyes of the whole nation will soon be on this case. Difficult, not to say unpopular decisions will have to be made. What I need to know from you, here and now, in this office, is simply this – are you prepared to follow this through? Wherever it leads?’

  Marsden took a deep breath and looked Roberta straight in the eye.