by Mark Raven
I have retired twice in my career: once from the Royal Air Force where I was a Warrant Officer in the RAF Regiment; the second time, two years before from the Metropolitan Police Service. The first occasion was pretty much a disaster—as it turned out—bouncing from one middle-ranking job into another. One of the things I promised myself when I left the Met was to spend some of the next few years doing things that I wanted to do. This included playing golf, painting bad seascapes and sundry other leisure activities suitable for a man in his fifties. But it also meant pursuing cases I was interested in. Sometimes these were pro bono investigations put my way by Hunt and Carstairs; others were the sort of cases that in previous jobs the bosses had told me to ignore. This might be because they could upset people in positions of power. Or they might be in that category we used to label in the Met ‘TFD’—too fucking difficult—the one where there was no evidence of wrongdoing and no one was really bothered whether you found some or not.
It was for this reason, perhaps, that I took the train up to London that late summer morning. Something was bugging me about the case of Sir Simeon Marchant, the client who never made it to Canterbury. I wanted to see what the Coroner’s Court had to say. Something did not smell right with this, and I could not get the urgency of Sir Simeon’s voice out of my head. In some small way, I felt responsible for the predicament he had found himself in. I could have gone up to London after all. I had not taken the old man’s concerns seriously, and now I felt I needed to make amends.
The train followed the Watling Street up from the coast, rattling alongside the old Pilgrim’s Trail until it reached Rochester, crossed the river in a sparkle of brass glints, and headed northwest towards the cream and red suburban sprawl that is south London.
Chapter Three
Camden and St Pancras Coroner’s Court is to the north of Euston Road, just behind St Pancras Gardens. It is a non-descript building, and inside like just about every Coroner’s Court I have ever been in: bare, administrative, a minimalist stage-set ready for the next tragedy. On a good day, the courtroom can hold about a hundred, with a table for the press, a box of Kleenex where the witnesses sat and the usual busy-body clerk standing at the front, telling people where to put themselves and not to spit on the floor.
I knew from my online research that Marchant was due on first, followed by an infant who had died in a local hospital and a Polish electrician who had inadvertently wired himself to the National Grid. The clerk looked like she had already decided it was going to be a very long day. She bustled over to me and asked if I was from the press. When I replied that I was not, she said, ‘Well just sit over there, will you?’ I did as I was told.
No sooner had I sat down than the clerk shouted for everyone to stand for the Coroner. He was a grey-haired, white man—as is usually the case—dapper, rosy-cheeked and looking very well on his daily diet of mishap, misadventure, maladministration, malfeasance and, very occasionally, murder.
I gazed across the empty courtroom. Apart from the lawyers with their wheelie-bags, there was a lone hack—local paper by the look of him—and a copper I knew reasonably well called Doug Richie.
Perhaps Richie had fallen on hard times, but I was surprised to see him there. Last time our paths had crossed, he was at Scotland Yard, a Detective Inspector in Serious and Organised Crime, sometimes still known as the Flying Squad; more often as SCD7, which sounded much more grown up and technocratic. At the time, I was working for the Met’s Department of Professional Standards, and was investigating Richie’s unit following a fast-tracked complaint from a Member of Parliament.
It was the usual cock up. An undercover officer reporting to Richie had been arrested for environmental activism—ironically, having assaulted a local bobby guarding a power station—and his name and photo published in the local paper. The alias used was one Alexander Watkins Penwortham—not a common name—and the court register the following week published his place and date of birth. This resulted in understandable apoplexy in a Mrs Deirdre Penwortham (née Watkins) of the same town, who twenty-two years earlier had lost her only son with the same name, place and DOB to whooping cough (with complications) at the tender age of just thirteen months.
A run of the mill case for the DPS and one allocated to Becket, who investigated it, irritated the hell out of Richie and his friends and wrote it all up in a 240 page internal report for the Independent Police Complaints Commission. No criminal action was taken.
As I explained to the local MP, whom the Penwortham family had naively brought into the matter, that this was quite a common occurrence—how else were the police able to protect the state? —but guidance had been breached in accessing an alias from so close to the area of operation. Off the record, the Met felt that it indicated a certain sloppiness on Richie’s part, but he was, of course, fully exonerated. It was a typical fudge—I was beginning to fall out of love with my job even then—and the Met left it to the MP to lie to his constituents about how he had given us all a severe bollocking and had received assurances that it would never ever happen again. The sacred memory of Alexander Watkins Penwortham was forever inviolate.
Not long after, I heard Inspector Richie had been moved to another section, operational not ‘specialist’, presumably where such mistakes would be less noticeable. Nevertheless it was a sideways move, and one that would not look too good on his record. However, I hadn’t realised Richie had fallen so far that he was covering an unlawful killing plea at a local Coroner’s Court.
Of course, Richie clocked me at once and gave that double-take of recognition that just stops short of a wave; the one where the person remembers just in time that they never really liked you very much anyway. He was joined by a tall woman, expensively dressed, which suggested she was neither copper nor solicitor—for this sort of court anyway. Richie whispered in her ear—he could just about reach—and everyone sat down.
The inquest was brief. The Coroner explained that, as there was an ongoing criminal investigation, proceedings would be adjourned until such time as these were complete. In the meantime, he checked with Detective Chief Inspector Richie—the man had been promoted after all— that both a police and an independent post-mortem had been completed and that the body could be released to the family. Richie, with customary efficiency, explained that the independent PM had been delayed due to the Bank Holiday, something clearly he had no control over. The clerk conferred with the Coroner who informed everyone that the body could be released just as soon as the second post-mortem was completed.
The woman next to Richie gave a visible sigh of relief. I assumed she was the daughter, Mrs Jenny Forbes-Marchant. The Coroner nodded sympathetically to her and then adjourned the inquest to ‘date unknown’. Grey-haired, serene, the Coroner rose and everyone followed like children at school assembly. The clerk said there would be a fifteen-minute recess before the next case.
There was only one exit from the courthouse, so I went outside and stood by it. I rolled myself a cigarette and lit it with my brass Zippo. Inhaling the petrol was almost as pleasurable as the first drag of the day. The smoking ban was turning out to be a good thing for me. Pubs and cafes had more seating outside these days, and it did stop you inhaling other people’s inferior tobacco when you had no choice. The other benefit was that there was nothing unusual in loitering by doorways anymore. You just stood there and lit up. Sooner or later someone would talk to you. If information is currency, as many people have observed, smokers are profligate. They are the prodigal sons of the knowledge economy, worse than teenagers or cab drivers. You have some useful chats in the amiable fraternity of nicotine addicts. In terms of starting a conversation, smoking is the next best thing to walking a dog.
But I wasn’t waiting for that sort of information. I was waiting for Richie.
He came out with Mrs Jenny Forbes-Marchant at his side. Hers was the sort of figure more admired than desired these days: big chest, thinish waist, pleasantly wide hips. Something anachronistic about her: film noir,
knitting patterns, Dorothy Lamour on the road to Rio, Julie London singing ‘My Heart Belongs to Daddy’. Fortyish, I guessed, brunette dyed auburn, in full sail, in a double-breasted navy trouser suit and red high heels. She was texting something as she strode along. I only hoped she didn’t stumble; if she fell on Richie, it would take some time to recover the body.
For a moment, I thought they would breeze right past. But in the end, Richie could not resist it and planted himself in front of me.
I looked him up and down—mainly down. I had forgotten how short he was—a little, shaven-headed bull terrier of a man—until he came up close, smelling of cheap aftershave and menthol chewing gum.
‘Becket,’ he said with his usual charm, ‘I thought you was dead.’
‘Still here, Richie. How about you?’
The policeman produced a best-you-can-do snort. He considered me as he chewed slowly. Perhaps it helped him think.
‘Still very much here, Becket. Back at SCD7 for the time being.’
‘The Lying Squad? Thought it was being disbanded.’
He ignored that.
‘I was sorry to hear you left, Becket. Everyone at the Yard hates you, by the way. What on earth did you do to upset so many people?’
I shrugged. ‘I'm sure any competent detective could find out.’
Richie squinted into the distance, as if to retrieve some very obscure fact.
‘I heard you was in Canterbury or something, Becket?’
At this, Mrs Forbes-Marchant started to pay attention. She put away her mobile and stepped forward.
She asked, ‘Are you the man I spoke to yesterday on the telephone?’
DCI Richie was clearly surprised by this information. He looked at Mrs Forbes-Marchant with renewed interest. I could almost see the cogs in his little head turning over laboriously. The digital switchover hadn’t happened up there yet. He looked at her the way some dogs look at their owners.
Had she commissioned me to get a second opinion on the investigation? Posh people were known to indulge in that sort of thing. They thought Scotland Yard was the NHS and wanted a view from Harley Street too. How could a public service possibly be good? It was a contradiction in terms. I felt for Richie. It used to madden me too.
Mrs Forbes-Marchant must have sensed this as she proceeded to inform Richie that Mr-er-Becket—there it was again—was contacted by her father shortly before his death. The day before, in fact.
I hoped she would say more—something I didn’t know—but she left it at that.
Richie seemed unsurprised. ‘That so?’ he asked me.
‘Sir Simeon called to make an appointment, that’s all.’
‘Oh yes? What about? It could be useful for the investigation.’
‘Oh, there is one, is there?’ I asked.
‘You know what the penalties are for withholding information, Becket. What was it about, this phone call?’
Richie stared at me as hard as he could without combusting. Somehow I didn’t buckle under the pressure. I told him I had no idea what it was about. That was what the appointment was for—to find out what it was about. That was what I had told Mrs Forbes-Marchant the night before. That was why I had come up to London. It seemed the least I could do. To find out. I liked finding things out. That was why I had left the Metropolitan Police Service.
There were many things Richie could have said in reply to all that but he contented himself with looking up at Sir Simeon Marchant’s daughter. She was almost as tall as me, five-eleven perhaps. Outwardly confident and yet, under all the accoutrements of her class—the nicely cut Jaeger suit, the scarf, the pearly necklace, the watch, the shoes, the Caribbean tan—she had a sort of flickering vulnerability, I thought, like one of those very English actresses, a Kristin Scott Thomas or a Penelope Keith. Or even a young Maggie Thatcher.
I shuddered.
‘His number was on Daddy’s phone,’ she explained.
Richie asked, ‘The one the muggers threw away?’
She nodded. I stubbed out my cigarette on the wall and put the tab in the metal grille provided for such purposes. Mrs Forbes-Marchant eyed me with distaste.
‘Any news on who they are?’ I asked Richie. ‘The muggers, I mean.’
‘Not for you there isn’t. Stay out of this, Becket.’
‘I was just paying my respects,’ I said to Jenny Forbes-Marchant. ‘I wish I had met your father. He was a great man.’
Her eyes softened, ‘Thank you.’
‘Yes, I wish I’d known him, too,’ Richie said.
And he pushed past me, leading Mrs Forbes-Marchant to his car.
I went for a coffee at St Pancras station and stared up at the departures board. The concourse was thronged with people waiting for the Eurostar. Foreign students, middle-aged French couples bemused by how much better the London station is than Gare du Nord—cleaner, cheaper, classier—people of various hues and races sitting on their suitcases or leaning against their rucksacks, the whole world seemed to be travelling. It would be nice to travel, I thought. I can afford to. I do not need to earn money. I have my pensions. Yes, I could travel. But where would I go? And why?
It seemed to me that the most tempting destination on the board was Canterbury. I could be home for lunch. A ploughman’s and a pint in the Cheker of Hope. Three buckets of balls on the driving range to work off my frustration. But still I did not move.
Eventually I rang my contact at the Yard. She confirmed, after a quick look at the system, that DCI Richie was indeed assigned to the Marchant case and that the only suspects listed were a gang of youths—‘known offenders’— from the Alconbury Estate in Camden. There was no record yet of them being interviewed, but that didn’t mean anything, she said. Just that no one had bothered to update the system.
‘Why are SCD7 involved?’ I asked. ‘Seems quite low-level for them.’
‘There’s a political connection,’ she said. ‘Special Intelligence Section are leading.’
SIS was the most cerebral section of the Flying Squad, ex-Special Branch some of them, the ones who had not moved over to Anti-Terrorist Command. If SIS was involved, there had to be something else going on.
‘How do you know?’ I asked.
‘Case officer has to tick a box these days.’ She laughed and added, ‘Richie of Special Intelligence, they call him. You are so out of date, Becket.’
‘I never had the training.’
‘Why am I not surprised? Well, us poor mortals have to complete a field if there’s a MP or Peer involved, even a senior civil servant, or adviser. The list gets longer every day.’
‘Any names?’
‘What? MPs? You're joking!’
‘No, the suspects, of course.’
‘Tom!’ She pretended to be shocked. ‘You know I can’t give you that information.’
‘Of course you can’t. Tell me, does everyone hate me at the Yard?’
‘Only those that remember you, Mr Becket.’
There was laughter at the other end. Then she added, ‘I’ll text them to you.’
Chapter Four
The Alconbury Estate is a series of seven horseshoe shaped low-rises—four levels, mid-Sixties chic, Grade 2 listed, wooden doors, in primary colours like an architectural version of a Mondrian painting—all of them still publicly owned. The London Borough of Camden has named each apartment block after an American president. The central block is currently attributed to Calvin B. Coolidge, the man responsible for the phrase ‘return to normalcy.’ It has always been a favourite of mine.
Contrary to popular belief, serious crime is rare in places like the Alconbury Estate. It migrates to the main roads, the pubs, clubs and parks in the vicinity. Criminal activity on estates like the Alconbury tends to be low-level, and boredom induced: excessive noise, partying, minor acts of extortion, threatening behaviour, loan-sharking and any combination of the above that makes people’s lives a misery. The Police of the Metropolis retreats to their patrol vehicles to allow residents to get on
with it, if not with each other. In the hot weather, one of the main aims of policing is to avoid sparking a riot—an expensive business—among people who have very little to lose and yet see how the other half lives on a daily basis. London is different from other English cities in that extreme wealth and poverty co-exist, often within the same postcode, smooth cheek by unshaven jowl.
That morning the Alconbury was quiet. It was 11 o’clock and the local citizenry was a-bed or at work. There were few passers-by. The first three people I approached ignored me completely, and the fourth advised me to do something that, on the face of it, seemed a physical impossibility. The fifth, an old lady carrying a shopping bag, took pity on me and enquired gently if I was ‘filth’. She put her bag down and asked to see some ID. I gave her my business card.
‘Oh, you’re a brief,’ she said. ‘My son’s up Pentonville, no thanks to you lot. Who you looking for, then?’
I gave her two names. She shook her head. Twice.
‘Never heard of them. Sound foreign to me, but then they all do these days, even the English ones. You want to try Reuben up at Coolidge. He will know who they are.’
‘Who’s Reuben?’
‘Community worker, they call him. If you’re going there, you could carry my bag as far as Kennedy.’
Silently I kept pace with her until we reached a row of shops—a bookmaker’s, a kebab shop, a newsagent—and she pointed at a sign that said ‘Community Office’.
‘You’ll find him in there.’
She retrieved the bag from my grasp as if she doubted my intention to return it.
‘There aren’t many people round here you’d trust to carry your shopping these days,’ she said by way of thanks. ‘That’s Kennedy. I can manage from here.’
‘Have you lived here long?’ I asked.
‘Since they were built. September Sixty-Four it was.’
