To Hell in a Handcart

by Richard Littlejohn

  ‘Get to fuck,’ Ricky said.

  ‘Put on another record. DO IT!’ Lawrence demanded.

  ‘I didn’t sign up for Vigilante FM,’ shouted Ricky.

  ‘And I don’t want to be associated with this, either. I used to be a copper, or have you forgotten that?’ Mickey protested.

  ‘We’ve put up a million quid to get you out,’ Lawrence reminded him.

  ‘Then I’d rather go back to jail,’ said Mickey.

  ‘And I’d rather he was in there than have your mad listeners going round blowing up hostels, murdering babies and women,’ screamed Andi.

  ‘Fuck it, I’m not going back in there,’ said Ricky. ‘Where’s my coat? I’m off.’

  As Ricky turned to leave, the producer called out: ‘No, Ricky, wait. Please, just wait while I print this out.’

  He walked over to the printer and handed Ricky a sheet of A4. Ricky read it, hurriedly, threw down his jacket, pushed past a startled Charlie Lawrence and marched back into the studio.

  He put the headphones back on, settled in front of the microphone and motioned to his producer to fade the music. Ricky spoke.

  ‘“The End of the World as We Know It”, by REM, ladies and gentlemen. In case you’re wondering, the reason I cut that song short was to bring you a newsflash, just in from the Press Association.

  ‘It has just been announced in a statement from Scotland Yard that yesterday’s explosion at an asylum hostel in Tottenham was caused by a gas leak, REPEAT, A GAS LEAK, and not a bomb as thought previously. Gas board and fire brigade investigators say they are satisfied the blast was an accident and not deliberate.

  ‘I’m sure you will be as relieved to hear that as we all are here at Rocktalk 99FM. I can only apologize for our last caller. There are some sick bastards out there.’

  Seventy-seven

  Colin Marsden shook hands with his brother, Billy, and, self-consciously, patted him on the shoulder.

  ‘Good to see you, kid.’

  ‘You, too,’ said Billy. ‘This way.’

  Billy led Colin through the station, past the custody suite, and out towards the car park at the back of the nick.

  ‘What’s all this about, Billy?’ asked Colin.

  ‘You’ll see.’

  At the bottom of the ramp, a breakdown truck had towed in a black S-class Mercedes, front-end crumpled, otherwise intact.

  ‘This the one on the wireless?’

  ‘The very same,’ confirmed Billy. ‘We were out on an obbo, Bishops Avenue, Hampstead, one of those twenty-million-quid gin palaces, ownership registered in the Cayman Islands, shell company for the Moscow wise guys, according to the Funnies. We had a tip that they were bringing in drugs from Africa, the Middle East, part-paying them in stolen cars, Mercs, Porsches, Beamers, Rollers, stolen to order. So we’re staking out this mansion, the gates open, this Merc drives out. Anyway, we decide to drop in behind, we’re in the Omega, the one with the Lotus tuning. The Merc heads north, towards Henley’s Corner. We keep our distance, as you do, not wanting to freak them. As we’re passing through the east side of the suburb, you know, where the road narrows, the Merc starts pulling away, 50, 60, 70, speed cameras going off like the Blackpool illuminations.

  ‘We stay with them, but hang back. At Henley’s Corner, they jump the lights doing about 75, right in front of a pair of Black Rats. Well, the traffic boys are going to have a bit of that, aren’t they? The best thing that’s happened to them all night.’

  Colin laughed.

  Billy continued. ’On go the blues and twos, off goes the Merc, straight through the next set of lights, the Golders Green turn, and hell for leather heading west, with our friends the Black Rats doing their Smokey and the Bandit impression. The Merc hits the Brent Cross flyover doing 90-odd, the Black Rat driver clatters a bollard protecting a hole in the road, cable works or something, loses it, and tips sideways on two wheels in the direction of Cricklewood.’

  Colin shook his head.

  ‘Anyway,’ Billy went on, ‘we think “fuck it”, switch on the siren and give it some hammer. We’re gaining on the Merc, past IKEA, under the railway line, past the Park Royal exit. As we approach Hanger Lane, the Merc swerves violently, hits a patch of oil or something, glides across three lanes and smashes straight into that new half-a-million quid’s worth of digital traffic camera.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah. Get on with it, Billy.’

  ‘Well, you know what these Mercs are built like. Fucking tanks. Three geezers scramble out as we pull up behind. The next thing, we’ve taken a couple of bullets in the windscreen, no one hurt, thank God, we’re head down and they’re legging it off towards Hanger Lane tube station.’

  ‘Did you go after them?’ Colin asked.

  ‘Me, a hero? You must be joking. We weren’t armed. It started as just a routine stakeout,’ said Billy. ‘By the time the ARV arrived, they were long gone.’

  ‘All very exciting, but what’s any of this got to do with me?’ Colin said, thinking that he didn’t remember mentioning anything about a black S-class Mercedes to his brother. To anyone else come to think of it. But both the king pikey and the lad at the petrol station had seen one the night of the shooting. Colin had seen the Merc near the petrol station himself, on the security video.

  ‘Come on, let’s go up to the office,’ said Billy.

  The drugs squad room was deserted.

  ‘Where is everyone?’ asked Colin.

  ‘The inspector’s on holiday, Marbella. The DCI’s away at Bramshill on some equal opportunities seminar. That leaves little old me in charge. Here, have a look at this. We found them in the boot. They left them there when they did a runner.’

  Lying on the desk was a black briefcase and a gun, like a pistol, but with a shoulder extension, a night sight and a huge silencer. Colin didn’t recognize the weapon.

  ‘What is it?’ he asked.

  ‘It’s called a Keltec Sub-9,’ explained Billy.

  ‘Never heard of it,’ shrugged Colin.

  ‘Former weapon of choice, KGB, East German Spetznatz, their SAS. Particularly popular with assassins. Folds away to sixteen by seven, easy to conceal, easy to assemble. Semi-auto, single action, ambidextrous. And here’s the beauty of it. Accepts practically any 9mm pistol magazine. Dead silent, too.’

  ‘How d’you know all this?’ asked Colin.

  ‘I did the weapons course, Hendon, remember? When I fancied joining the branch. Guess who my tutor was?’

  ‘Mickey French.’

  ‘Correct, Mickey French. As I said, small world,’ Billy grinned, ‘and it gets smaller.’

  ‘Spit it out.’

  Billy opened the leather attaché case. Alongside the compartment which had contained the components of the Keltec Sub-9, was a small Nikon camera, zoom lens. Lying on top was a brown envelope. Billy pulled a sheaf of photos out of the envelope. One by one, he handed them to Colin.

  ‘Recognize anyone?’ Billy asked.

  ‘Shit, that’s Dinantu, or Popescu, or whatever he’s called. The dead guy. And that’s, that’s, fuck me.’

  ‘Mr Justin Fromby,’ Billy prompted him.

  Collins, the dip squad detective had told Colin that Fromby had bailed Dinantu. Certain.

  ‘Where were these taken?’ Colin asked.

  ‘Can’t be sure, but they’re time- and date-coded.’

  The little white digits in the right-hand corner were quite specific.

  ‘It gets better,’ said Billy. He was enjoying this. It’s not often he had one over his big brother.

  ‘Give me the rest,’ snapped Colin, reaching for the remaining photos.

  ‘Oi, manners,’ Billy chided him. ‘You need to see them in sequence.’

  A woman arriving at the house, hour or so later, raincoat. From the back, no clear ID.

  ‘Who’s the boy coming out?’ asked Colin.

  ‘Not sure,’ said Billy. ‘I’ve not had time to run him through the system. But you’ll recognize this next one.’

  Col
in took the photograph in both hands.

  Dinantu/Popescu climbing into a taxi, a couple of hours after arriving. At the door, Fromby and a woman he recognized only too well.

  Deputy Assistant Commissioner Roberta Peel.

  Colin sat down, put the picture on the desk. Staring, gaping.

  What the fuck had he walked into?

  Fromby, Peel and the dead guy, pictured together, according to the time and date code, just hours before Dinantu/Popescu was shot dead at Mickey French’s house.

  And round the Romanian’s head, in felt-tip pen, someone had drawn a target, like you see through a gun-sight.

  ‘Billy,’ he said to his brother. ‘You can’t get involved in this.’

  ‘I am involved, bruv. But in what, I’m not quite sure.’

  ‘Me neither, not entirely. Look, can you let me take this lot, the gun, the photos?’ Colin asked.

  ‘I suppose, but you’ll have to have them back here by the end of the week, when the DCI gets back, else he’ll have my bollocks.’

  ‘Trust me.’

  ‘Fine. But, Col,’ said Billy, ‘you be careful. Be very careful.’

  Seventy-eight

  ‘But, Home Secretary,’ protested Roberta. ‘Paul, please.’

  ‘Less of the Paul, if you don’t mind, Deputy Assistant Commissioner. Home Secretary will do just fine.’

  ‘Pau, er, sorry, Home Secretary, do we have to be so formal?’ she inquired in her most coquettish voice.

  ‘Yes, we bloody do, Roberta, Deputy Assistant Commissioner, rather. This is a very serious matter. I don’t expect my holidays to be interrupted by phone calls from the Prime Minister. He is particularly concerned about the way in which things have been allowed to spiral out of control. And so am I. For Christ’s sake, I’ve had to fly back from Tuscany. I’m not happy, not happy at all. What the hell do you think you have been playing at?’

  ‘Doing my job, that’s all,’ Roberta said, anxiously twisting the cord of the telephone in her private office.

  ‘Your job? Since when has your job been stirring up false anxieties, conjuring mad bombers out of thin air, scaring people half to death? I’ve had Everton Gibbs on. He thinks you’ve made a complete fool of him. Why the hell didn’t you wait for the full report before announcing that the explosion at the hostel in Tottenham was a racist attack?’ The Home Secretary sounded absolutely furious.

  ‘But, but, all the evidence pointed to it,’ Roberta blustered.

  ‘Evidence? Evidence? What fucking evidence?’

  ‘But, Paul, Home Secretary, sorry, given the background, I just assumed that …

  ‘Assumed? You’re not paid to assume anything.’

  ‘But look at the facts. The hostel was crowded with asylum-seekers, foreign nationals, refugees. There’ve been threats made against the asylum community, only the other day, on the radio. What was I supposed to think?’

  ‘That’s the point. You are supposed to think!’

  ‘I was only following government guidelines,’ Roberta pointed out. ‘Remember? All incidents involving minorities to be presumed racist. If someone thinks it is a racist incident, then as far as I’m concerned it is a racist incident.’

  ‘But this was a gas leak, not fucking Mississippi Burning.’

  ‘We weren’t to know that. We had to treat it as a suspected racist bombing, especially after Soho and Brick Lane.’

  ‘By all means treat it as a suspected racist incident. But don’t stand in front of a rally and announce that it is a racist bombing and then go on television and radio and make the same wild allegations. Scaremongering and spreading terror is not part of your brief. You’re doing the racists’ job for them. They must be pissing themselves,’ the Home Secretary barked into Roberta’s ear.

  ‘But, but …’

  ‘Just listen.’ The Home Secretary, in full rant, cut her short. ‘You gave members of the ethnic minorities, vulnerable people, the impression that racist bombers were operating in London. There are barricades going up all over the place, in Brixton, Southall, Haringey. Everton Gibbs is trying to build bridges between the communities, and they’re building fucking barricades. You’ve set back race relations fifteen years.’

  ‘Now, I really must protest,’ said Roberta indignantly. ‘I’ve done more than any senior member of the Met …’

  ‘You’ve made the Metropolitan Police Service a complete laughing stock. And the government. And, by extension, me.’

  ‘You? How come?’ asked Roberta.

  ‘It was me who specifically asked the commissioner to make you head of diversity and give you complete command of the French business, the shooting in Heffer’s Bottom. And that’s another thing.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You’ve made a right pig’s ear of that, too,’ the Home Secretary said.

  ‘I’m sorry?’ said Roberta, completely taken aback.

  ‘I don’t know why I let you talk me into it.’

  ‘I thought you wanted me to handle it,’ she said.

  ‘I thought you could handle it.’

  ‘I’ve done everything by the book. This was a racist murder, definite. He’s charged and awaiting trial.’

  ‘Yes, on bail.’

  ‘I couldn’t help that.’

  ‘Maybe not, but you could have kept the temperature down, not stoked the fires,’ the Home Secretary said.

  ‘I thought you wanted this to be a demonstration of zero tolerance of racist violence,’ she argued.

  ‘But we didn’t want a backlash. You could have kept the lid on it. First French turns up on the radio, while still in custody.’

  ‘That wasn’t my fault. I’ve dealt with it.’

  ‘Then that Clarion piece, by barmy bloody Georgia. Were you behind that?’

  ‘Absolutely not!’

  ‘Then where did she get all the inside stuff from, the quotes from police reports?’

  ‘I, er, she must have paid someone, at division.’

  ‘Don’t insult my intelligence any further,’ said the Home Secretary, wearily. ‘The Prime Minister is deeply, deeply disturbed at the way events have turned out. Especially the riot, outside the court. Angel Hill is a key marginal, you know. There’s an election coming up. There are plenty of marginals like Angel Hill, all over the country. Haven’t you seen the polls? Haven’t you got any political antennae? French has nationwide support, you know. You’ve managed to turn him into a martyr.’

  ‘Me? Turn him into a martyr? Now, hang on. You were all for this,’ Roberta screamed into the phone.

  ‘No, no, no. You were put in charge to establish the facts. There are plenty of people who think French is the victim in all this. Perhaps he was in the right to defend his own home, use “reasonable force” I believe is the expression. That certainly seems to be the consensus.’

  ‘I thought you wanted him hanged, drawn and quartered,’ said Roberta.

  ‘No, Deputy Assistant Commissioner. I have a record of our conversation. I seem to remember it was you who was all in favour of making an example of French. Perhaps you should have taken more time to establish the full facts, before rushing to charge him. I’m very worried about your lack of judgement, all round. We appear to have misjudged your leadership qualities.’

  ‘You’re not hanging me out to dry on this one, Paul.’

  ‘I’m so sorry, I have to go,’ said the Home Secretary. ‘The Prime Minister’s on the other line. Goodbye, Deputy Assistant Commissioner.’

  You complete and utter shit, Roberta said to herself and began to wonder if Group 4 might soon have a vacancy for a Deputy Assistant Commissioner.

  Seventy-nine

  Colin Marsden drove straight to the Home Office ballistics lab, opposite the Imperial War Museum, in Lambeth, south London, and introduced himself to the technician working on the bullets found in the Heffer’s Bottom corpse.

  ‘D’you get my e-mail?’ the technician asked.

  ‘No, sorry. It’s been a bit, you know,’ Marsden said.


  ‘I heard you were caught up in that Tottenham palaver,’ the technician said.

  ‘Yeah, caught up, you could say that.’

  ‘A couple of our guys were down there. They marked it as a gas main from the off,’ the technician said, nonchalantly. ‘Dunno what all the fuss was about.’

  ‘You had to be there, so to speak,’ said Marsden. ‘What have you got for me?’

  ‘Over here.’ The technician led Colin to a table with an enamel, kidney-shaped dish containing four lead slugs.

  ‘These the ones?’ Marsden asked.

  ‘The very same.’

  ‘They all look alike to me.’

  ‘Sure they do. They all looked alike to me, too, until you asked me to look a little harder. No one had ever mentioned anything about two guns,’ the technician said.

  He picked up one slug with a pair of tweezers.

  ‘This was the first, the only one, originally, I examined. No doubt, fired from this weapon,’ he said, tapping Mickey French’s Glock. ‘This one, too, was fired from this gun.’

  ‘And these?’ Marsden asked, pointing to the other two lead slugs, which were more badly distorted than the first two.

  ‘Fired from a different gun. Same calibre, mind, but not the same gun.’

  ‘These weren’t fired from the Glock, you’re certain?’ Marsden pressed him.

  ‘They might have been fired from a Glock, but not this one.’

  ‘How can you tell?’

  ‘Right, stop me if I’m getting too technical, but basically, these two, the first two, are your bog-standard, hollow-point, 9mm bullets, regular police issue,’ said the technician.

  ‘And the others?’

  ‘They’re 9mm, too, same calibre, almost identical unless you look hard. These are what they call soft-nose. The first two mushroom on impact. These sort of explode, which is why they’re more badly mangled. But basically once they’re inside the body they behave pretty much the same.’

  ‘So how do you know the difference?’ asked Marsden.

  ‘I ran them through spectrographic analysis.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You really don’t need to know, unless you’ve got all day,’ the technician said.