To Hell in a Handcart

by Richard Littlejohn

  The audience rose for a minute’s silence.

  Halfway through, the respectful tribute was disturbed by the sound of snoring from the platform. Georgia Claye was standing up, but her head was slung back, her mouth wide open, doing a passable impersonation of someone trying to kick-start a tractor.

  Roberta Peel nudged her.

  ‘Er, uggh, waah, urrrgh,’ bumbled Georgia, as she lost her balance, sashayed to the side of the stage and fell head-over-heels down the steps, her too-short skirt riding up to reveal a pair of voluminous red silk knickers.

  The audience reacted with a mixture of indignation and titters. Roberta stepped into the breach.

  ‘Please forgive our honoured guest, ladies and gentlemen. She has been working night and day to expose the true story behind the shooting of Gica Dinantu and it would appear that she has been overcome by tiredness.’

  Nothing, obviously, to do with being overcome by six cans of Olde Bowel Loosener and two bottles of Beaujolais at lunchtime.

  ‘May I suggest a brief adjournment,’ said Roberta.

  Everton Gibbs agreed.

  ‘Comrades, we shall continue shortly,’ he said. ‘Meanwhile please enjoy our new Asylum Manifesto, copies of which you should have found upon your seats.’

  At the side of the stage, Georgia was slumped unconscious, her stupor consolidated by a lump on the head sustained as she hit the deck.

  Two stewards were called to assist her removal.

  With head held high and feet held higher, Georgia was carried out.

  Seventy-four

  Wayne Sutton sold Ricky Sparke’s video, DVD machine and MP3 player to a fence in the Caledonian Road and what he didn’t blow on skunk he fed into a fruit machine in an arcade in King’s Cross, popular with rent boys and nonces.

  Making his way back through Holloway in the early hours, munching a kofti kebab, he noticed the front door of a house wide open.

  Well, Wayne reckoned, it would be rude not to.

  He went inside and discovered an open-plan set-up, stairs leading off the main room, no handrail.

  There was a leather coat draped across a Moroccan-style sofa, newspapers strewn everywhere and a television talking to itself.

  Wayne surveyed the room. The video was an old model, one of those top-loaders, went out with the ark. The CD player wasn’t up to much either, part of a cheap stacking system.

  Wayne toyed with a few ornaments, largely African wood carvings and odd bits of stone.

  There was a desk in the room, with an ancient Amstrad word processor and some kind of, well, he wasn’t sure what it was.

  Wayne picked it up. A thin piece of metal with a sharp point, a spike, about twelve inches tall, supported by a wooden base. There was an engraved plaque on the base. It read: ‘The Golden Spike, for services to campaigning journalism.’

  Wayne put it down. That was no good to him. He checked the drawers for money, credit cards, stuff like that. Nothing.

  Wayne wandered into the kitchen, opened the fridge and helped himself to a can of super-strength cider.

  There seemed to be little else in the fridge, apart from three bottles of wine and a rancid carton of milk.

  Wayne took a slug and decided to investigate further. Upstairs, might be a handbag or something.

  There was a light on in a bedroom. Wayne pushed open the door. The bare arse was the first thing which struck him, like a giant, flabby, bruised peach, facing upwards, puckered in his direction.

  About eighteen inches below the prow of the buttocks, Wayne noticed a giant pair of red silk knickers, half mast, stretched between Georgia Claye’s spreadeagled knees.

  She was face down on the duvet. Her cabbie had dumped her at the front gate. Somehow she had managed to drag herself indoors, upstairs and made the bedroom.

  Her handbag was lying open at the foot of the bed. Wayne removed her purse, took out what was left of the fifty pounds she’d received for her incontinent appearance on the Ricky Sparke show – she insisted on cash – and stuffed it in his pocket.

  As he looked up, his eyes were drawn to the cavernous arse, wobbling involuntarily as Georgia snored.

  Georgia stirred and turned over, semi-conscious, spotting Wayne standing at the foot of the bed.

  Georgia had to admit to herself that she didn’t recognize the young man standing there, but it wouldn’t be the first time.

  She’d often woken after a night in Spider’s or the local navvies’ boozer with a strange man in her bed, a damp patch on the duvet and a nasty taste in her mouth.

  Most of the time, she vaguely remembered meeting them, inviting them home. But not this one. He was a bit young. A bit of a result, actually.

  Wayne began to back out of the bedroom, disgusted by the ghastly sight of this flabby, wrinkled, marooned manatee.

  ‘No, don’t go, please stay. Come here, lie down. We haven’t got to know each other properly yet,’ called Georgia, pathetically.

  Wayne turned on his heels and charged downstairs, heading for the front door. Her left foot caught in the strap of her handbag, her knickers constricting the movement of her right.

  Georgia surged forward, like a Sumo wrestler. She tried to pull up her knickers on the move as she followed Wayne out of the bedroom onto the landing, stumbling, losing her balance at the top of the stairs.

  She reached for the non-existent banister, slipped, bounced off the wall and flew through the air, hitting her desk face down, at speed, her one and only trophy puncturing her left breast and piercing her heart.

  Georgia Claye’s life ended, fittingly, like so much of her life’s work.

  On the spike.

  Seventy-five

  Colin Marsden rubbed the bandage covering the three stitches he’d needed in his chin. His knee was raw and, generally, he felt as if he’d been kicked by a horse.

  He’d hung around until the emergency services arrived, briefed the uniformed chief inspector and gone by ambulance to North Middlesex hospital, where his wounds had been treated but it had not been necessary to detain him. He’d made his own way to Tottenham nick, given a full statement and called DAC Peel on her mobile to inform her of what had happened.

  He’d missed out the bit about the black cab and the petrol pump attendant, explaining merely that he’d wanted to find out more about the deceased, build up a bit of a picture, try and understand what he was doing in Heffer’s Bottom at that time on the night of the shooting.

  Just tying loose ends, ma’am, leaving nothing to chance.

  Roberta had been in the back of her official Rover when he rang, on her way to address the anti-racism rally, convened by Everton Gibbs and the racial equality commission.

  She was glad to hear that he had escaped relatively unscathed and said she hoped to be at Angel Hill some time the following afternoon.

  Marsden had taken a sedative given to him at the hospital and had slept soundly. He woke, ravenous.

  Only an Angel Hill canteen special would suffice.

  He was there on the dot, for the full English, much to the surprise of his colleagues, who expected him to milk a few days’ sick leave out of his ordeal.

  No point sitting around moping, Colin figured, though he was haunted by the anguished look on the young girl, Maria’s face in the split second before the secondary explosion.

  He checked his e-mails. One from his brother, Billy, another from the ballistics lab.

  He rang Billy first.

  ‘DS Marsden.’

  ‘Hi, Billy,’ said Colin. ‘Before you ask, I’m fine.’

  ‘Glad to hear it. Why shouldn’t you be fine?’

  ‘You’ve not heard?’ said Colin.

  ‘About what?’

  ‘The explosion, Tottenham. The hostel. I was there.’

  ‘Shit. I mean, yeah, I heard, not until this morning. We were out all night, on an operation. All got a bit hairy. That’s what I wanted, well one of the things, I wanted to talk to you about. Hey, are you OK?’

  ‘I said, d
idn’t I? Cuts and bruises, nothing fatal,’ Colin reassured his kid brother. ‘What have you got for me?’

  ‘Coupla things. First, you were asking about getting into the Interpol system? Well, I rang the liaison guy at the Yard, he’s an old mate, told him it was a drugs squad investigation, ran your man’s name, Dinantu, past him.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And he’s dead.’

  ‘I know that. I’ve seen the body. I was there, half an hour after French shot him,’ sighed Colin.

  ‘No, just listen.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Gica Dinantu was killed in an abortive car-jacking in Hamburg, months ago.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The name’s flagged. Some Kraut inspector, called Freud, or Frend, or something. Seems this Dinantu character died in a shoot-out, a chase. But his oppo, the Krauts reckon the guy who masterminded it, may have got away.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So my mate at the Yard contacted this Freund, Freud, character. Ran the picture of your Mr Dinantu by him, e-mailed it to him. And guess what?’

  ‘Why do I think I know what’s coming?’ Colin anticipated the next piece of information.

  ‘It wasn’t Dinantu. It’s his oppo. Your corpse is the accomplice, the other guy in Hamburg, name of Ilie Popescu. Romanian, car thief. Tied up with the Russian mafia, some suggestion of a falling-out. Over money. Seems the German police were right. He did get away.’

  ‘And arrived here posing as an asylum-seeker, adopting the identity of his mate, who he knew was dead already, Gica Dinantu,’ said Colin.

  ‘Oh, and that’s not all. My mate at the Yard tipped me the wink that someone else had been into the file, Dinantu/Popescu file, from this end, recently,’ Billy added, tantalizingly.

  ‘Did he say who?’ asked Colin.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Didn’t, couldn’t or wouldn’t?’ inquired Colin.

  ‘I’ve no idea, bruv. He said it was classified, that’s all. Over his head. I don’t know if that gets you any further,’ said Billy.

  ‘Thanks, Billy,’ said Colin.

  ‘Small world, though,’ said Billy.

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘There was something else I needed to talk to you about.’

  ‘Yeah?’ said Colin, curious.

  ‘Not on the phone, it’s, er, a bit sensitive. Can you get over here, say lunchtime?’ asked Billy.

  ‘Yeah, should be OK. Though I shall have to be back later, the DAC, Her Ladyship, is paying another state visit. Meet you in the boozer, the Crown, about one?’ said Colin.

  ‘No, we can grab a pint later. Come to the nick first.’

  Seventy-six

  ‘Police are still sifting through the rubble of the asylum hostel in Tottenham, destroyed by an explosion yesterday. Five people were killed, including one baby, and at least twenty more taken to hospital. The full casualty list has still to be finalized. No one has yet claimed responsibility.

  ‘Scotland Yard has launched a top-level investigation into the blast, which is being treated as a racist attack. It has just been announced that it will be led by Deputy Assistant Commissioner Roberta Peel, the Met’s head of diversity, who is also in charge of the Mickey French case.

  ‘After addressing an anti-racism, pro-asylum rally last night, DAC Peel promised Rocktalk 99FM that the perpetrators of the Tottenham bombing would be brought to justice.

  ‘Also at last night’s meeting, the Clarion journalist Georgia Claye, was taken unexpectedly unwell. Her condition was described as “predictable”.

  ‘Elsewhere, in west London, a high-speed chase in the early hours, involving officers from the drugs squad, ended in a pile-up which is still causing traffic chaos in the Hanger Lane area. Police were pursuing three suspects who escaped on foot after their car left the road and crashed into a new digital speed camera at approximately 85 miles per hour. Shots were fired and a police spokesman today said that when they catch the driver he could be looking at a two-year ban.

  ‘Meanwhile, in an effort to tackle pollution and cut the number of unemployed, able-bodied young men in London, the Deputy Prime Minister has announced a scheme to pave over the area from Euston Road to the Embankment, ban all traffic, including black cabs, and bring back sedan chairs and horse-drawn buses, thus creating thousands of job opportunities, and bringing a welcome boost to the farriers’ trade and the organic manure industry.

  ‘The Deputy Prime Minister announced this initiative in Trafalgar Square before boarding a helicopter for RAF Norwood, where a private Lear jet was waiting to take him and his family on holiday to the Monaco Grand Prix, as guests of the Formula One Association.

  ‘Those are the headlines from Rocktalk 99FM. Ricky Sparke is next.’

  Ricky was feeling a little delicate. They had repaired to Spider’s, after clearing up the flat, and Ricky had stayed on, sending Mickey and Andi on ahead to get reacquainted.

  He’d let them have his bed and said he’d sleep on the sofa. What he didn’t realize is that the sofa upon which he would spend the night was in Spider’s.

  Dillon let him crash there on compassionate grounds and arranged an alarm call.

  Several pints of dark, sweet coffee and a sausage and egg baguette later, Ricky was ready for the fray. As the time bell rang on the ‘Sultans of Swing’, Ricky faded up his mike and spoke.

  ‘Good morning, everyone, welcome to the Ricky Sparke show. And a very good morning, if he’s listening, and if he’s not there’s going to be trouble, to our very own Mickey French, reunited with his child bride. Let’s hope you got even less sleep than I did, kiddywinkies.

  ‘Phone lines are open now, call us on the usual number. Your calls are already banked up back to Heston Services, so don’t let’s waste any more time. Steve’s on line one. Morning Steve, what’s your pleasure?’

  ‘Morning, Ricky, I rung up the other day, when you had Mickey on, like, Mickey French.’

  ‘Yeah, right, Steve. Welcome back to the show.’

  ‘Thanks, mate.’

  ‘What do you want to talk about this morning, Steve?’

  ‘That explosion at Tottenham, Ricky.’

  ‘Terrible business, Steve, terrible. What about it?’

  ‘I dun it.’

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘I dun it. I blew it up.’

  ‘Stop messing about, Steve. This isn’t funny.’

  ‘It’s not meant to be funny, Ricky. I’m dead serious.’

  ‘You mean, you, you, er?’

  ‘I planted the bomb, Ricky.’

  ‘Come off it, Steve. Stop pulling my plonker.’

  ‘I’m not pulling anything, Ricky. I got all the gen, like, on how to make the bomb off the internet. It was dead easy.’

  ‘I’m not listening to any more of this. I’m going to cut you off.’

  ‘You’ll do no such fucking thing, mate,’ Ricky heard Charlie Lawrence shout in his earpiece over the talkback. ‘You keep him going. This is a real scoop. This is great radio.’

  Steve ploughed on.

  ‘Don’t cut me off, Ricky. You‘re the one what started all this Free Mickey French business, on the radio.’

  ‘Yeah, but, look, Steve, he’s free.’

  ‘Only on bail, Ricky. He’s still charged with murder. I told you the other day, direct action, that’s what’s needed, until all the charges are dropped. That’s what I did. Direct action.’

  ‘People were killed yesterday. A baby, a young woman.’

  ‘Casualties of war, Ricky.’

  ‘That’s it, enough. You’re insane. We’re tracing this call.’

  ‘Don’t bother, Ricky, I withheld the number. I’ll be in touch.’

  The line went dead.

  Charlie Lawrence instructed the producer to stick on another record.

  Ricky flung his headset onto the console and stormed out of the studio, into the control room.

  ‘You’re fucking mental, too,’ he screamed at Charlie Lawrence.

  ‘This is a
fucking radio station, not the Samaritans,’ Lawrence shouted back. ‘Ratings are what matter, ratings. That was radio to die for.’

  ‘An unfortunate turn of phrase, Charlie.’

  ‘Look, mate. I dunno whether this Steve character was making it up or not, but think of it – a confession, on air. Fabuloso! We’ll be beating the listeners off with a stick. Think of the figures, think of our deal, think of the money. You’re a rich man, Ricky.’

  ‘Think of twenty years inside for inciting terrorism,’ yelled Ricky. ‘You heard him. He got the idea from us.’

  ‘That’s bollocks, mate,’ said Lawrence. ‘We can’t be responsible for every fucking nutter who rings up, decides to go round planting bombs.’

  ‘Did you get his number?’ Ricky asked the phone-op.

  ‘No, I put him straight through.’

  ‘We never put anyone straight through. We ring them back, check they’re kosher,’ said Ricky. ‘Station policy.’

  ‘I told her to put him through,’ Lawrence interrupted. ‘New station policy. We were spending a fortune ringing them back. I decided to save a few bob.’

  ‘And now we’ve got a lunatic running round out there,’ said Ricky.

  ‘We don’t know that.’

  The door burst open. Mickey and Andi barged in.

  ‘What the fuck was all that about?’ Mickey demanded to know.

  ‘You heard?’

  ‘In the car, on the way in, just now,’ Andi said. ‘Ricky, what is going on here?’

  The record came to an end. The producer played a trailer, another commercial.

  ‘Get back in there,’ Lawrence ordered Ricky.