by Mark Raven
‘So the Council renamed Kennedy Court, then?’
‘No flies on you, is there? Yes, it was ‘Roosevelt’ when I moved in, but no one could spell it. Now they want to call Coolidge ‘Obama’. The Council has voted on it.’
She hobbled off. I went into the Community Office, where I was greeted by a young black woman sat behind a metal grille.
‘He’s not in,’ she said as soon as she laid eyes on me.
‘Who’s not in?’ I asked.
The woman glittered with much jewellery in the gloom. Her eyes flashed antipathy. She glowered at me.
‘Reuben. You’ll be wanting to see him. I can tell by the way you are dressed. He’ll be back about twelve I expect. Sit down if you want.’
It was half-eleven, so I sat down. Through a security door I could see office staff drifting by. The Community Office was a hive of activity. It also housed the Citizens’ Advice Bureau and local Credit Union, organisations that I thoroughly approved of. People came to the grille, made an appointment or were buzzed right through. If they had not got an appointment, they needed a very good reason to get past the receptionist. I began to feel fortunate that I was allowed to stay in reception. Few others were.
In my black suit and tie, I felt conspicuous. Supplicants would glance at me as they made their case for admission to the inner sanctum of the Alconbury Community Credit Union. I heard whispered—and sometimes not so sotto voce—imprecations that told of delayed benefits payments, loan sharks, Pay Day or Log-Book Lenders, credit card hounds, monies stranded overseas or in missing partners’ pockets. People pleaded and received little sympathy. They got ‘So you’re really okay till Thursday? Let’s book you in for tomorrow.’ Spoonfuls of tough love were dispensed like cod liver oil by the receptionist behind the metal grille. It was like eavesdropping on confession at the local church.
Dealing with this on a daily basis probably makes you like that, I thought. But after a while I could stand no more of it. I felt uncomfortable, like I had no right to be there. So I went over to her.
‘I’m just going out for a cigarette.’
The woman nodded back. I stopped.
‘Reuben’s surname. It’s Symonds, right?’
The woman looked at me oddly and nodded again.
No one seems to want to talk to me today, I thought. Strange that.
I had met Reuben Symonds once before, while I was still in the force. Well actually, I had asked him a question at a conference, which is not quite the same as meeting someone. The subject of the event had been community policing, and it coincided with the launch of a new government strategy on the subject or, more accurately, something called ‘Community Safety’. I am sure there is a department in the Home Office that comes up with new names for old failures. If they are really worried they put the ‘P’ word next to whatever the new initiative is. The ‘P’ word means it is someone else’s fault. Society is to blame, as Monty Python once said, so we will be charging them too. So the conference where Reuben Symonds spoke, all those years ago, was on the subject of Community Safety Partnerships.
Reuben had been an impressive speaker. Tall, thin, ebony black, with the healthy amber glow of an athlete, and greying peppercorn hair cut close to the head. He began by telling his story—always a good opener at such gatherings—and not without emotion in his case. He stressed how his criminal actions had affected those around him: his brothers, sisters, cousins, and his mother (breaking into tears at this point). It was something he called ‘the ripple effect’: how if you did one bad thing, it was shown to affect twelve other people in your life.
It was a hot day. One of the coppers behind me—a nascent Richie by the sound of him—had whispered to his mate that he could ‘just do with a raspberry ripple’. I had turned and made a note of the man’s number—he was in uniform fortunately—and that had sufficed to keep him quiet for the rest of the talk.
Everyone hates you at the Yard, Becket.
The event had been in the British Library, not far from the Alconbury Estate but culturally on another planet. Symonds talked about how he had passed Pentonville on the way there that day. He had even looked up at the cell he used to be in. He described the view and the desire to be in the normal world outside and the fact that there were people just like him there now looking out. He went on to outline his recidivism, the inability to keep down a job, and the easy route of slipping back into crime.
On his second stretch (this time for armed robbery), he was diagnosed with dyslexia and he began to understand why he had felt frustrated at school, his sense of anger and resentment at not being able to succeed. However Reuben Symonds was not one for using this as an excuse—in his book there was no excuse for criminal behaviour—and he decided to pursue what he called his ‘redemption’. The Prisoners’ Education Trust talked to him. He got help with his reading. He described how he got the learning bug, going from one course to another, to doing his ‘A’ levels, to taking a degree in English Literature with the Open University. He won a national adult learner of the year award and, on release, volunteered at his local community centre in Tottenham. The housing association saw his talents and employed him. He had helped with something called the Reduced Crime Initiative and crime had duly seen a reduction. He had been visited there by the Home Secretary, the Prime Minister, the London Mayor, and even the Prince of Wales, who gamely attempted to compose a few lines of rap poetry. A number of celebrities visited—musicians, athletes, footballers—and not all of them black.
Reuben Symonds had clearly gone onto better things since. He was now the Community Coordinator at the Alconbury. And it was quite a community to coordinate.
I was stubbing out my cigarette as Symonds turned the corner of Coolidge Court and walked in my direction. He was accompanied on either side by two men—one black, one white—who looked like they spent a considerable amount of their leisure time lifting weights. They were all dressed in black t-shirts. Reuben Symonds wore black shorts and no socks. It looked odd that he also carried a briefcase. His companions carried nothing but their arms, but they looked heavy enough. All three were staring at me like they could not quite comprehend my existence.
‘I heard I had a visitor,’ Symonds said. ‘But they didn’t say your name.’
‘Becket.’
‘That it? Becket? Just that?’
‘Tom Becket. One T as in the martyr.’
‘What martyr?’
‘Thomas A Becket. You know, Archbishop of Canterbury? Murdered by Henry the Second?’
‘Oh that martyr!’ one of the weightlifters said sarcastically.
I offered my hand. Reuben Symonds shook it lightly. The other guys did not offer theirs. They contented themselves with staring at the side of my head.
‘What can I do for you, Tom Becket?’ Symonds asked. ‘You're not the police as we’ve just come from there.’
‘Can we talk inside?’
‘What about? That’s my point, man. We are busy people. What about?’
I gave him three names: Sir Simeon Marchant, Djbril Mustapha, and Darren Patterson.
‘Marchant was my client,’ I added.
‘You better come in. Do you want to sit in on this, Pete?’
He was addressing the white guy.
‘No, you’re all right, Rube, man. Leave it to you.’
Inside we were buzzed through immediately. I could feel the place come alive with Reuben Symonds’s presence. It became more focused; people looked his way, or shouted out a greeting. Several petitioners for credit stood up and shook his hand like they were extremely grateful for something. It was impressive, if slightly creepy.
Symonds steered me through to a tiny office that he unlocked with a key attached to his belt. He reminded me of a prison warder, but somehow I refrained from saying so. There were three chairs and a computer station. A homemade poster on the wall said: Have you saved your work? Symonds put his briefcase on one chair and offered me another. I sat down.
‘Used to be my
office,’ he said. ‘They converted it to a training room while I was on holiday. They said I was always out anyway.’
He chuckled.
I said, ‘I'm just glad Pete didn’t take up your offer to join us.’
Reuben Symonds smiled. ‘Bit tight in here, isn’t it? Yeah well you see the problem is Big Pete is Darren’s brother. So I thought it was only polite.’
‘Kids, eh?’
‘Yes, the last they need is unnecessary trouble. Just got most of them all back to school.’
‘That where you’ve been?’
‘Yeah, you know the usual talk. Put the frighteners on Year 11. Pete, Calvin and me do our bit for Community Safety, alongside the local Bobbies.’
He leant back in his chair, regarding me evenly.
‘That’s where I remember you from! It was bugging me. British Library few years back. You asked me a question.’
‘I remember your answer. ‘
He laughed, not so cautious now.
‘It was the best question I have ever had from a group of coppers, any group. You said you liked my response to the government but you asked when I thought someone like me would ever write a community policing strategy.’
‘Never.’
‘Exactly. I was right. People like me didn’t even get asked our views, let alone write them down. Although things are changing now. Now I do get invited to the meetings. The ones where they do write things down. True, everyone is paid two or three times as much as me to be there, but our opinions are equal. So they say. I heard you got kicked out of the Met.’
‘I was asked to leave.’
‘Sounds like a party.’
‘It wasn’t. Who told you?’
‘Chief Inspector Richie. He said you might come round asking questions. Did he give you the boys’ names?’
‘No. And he told me not to come round asking questions.’
‘Why you got kicked... sorry asked to leave,’ he observed.
‘Well, I guess these days I don’t have to answer to the likes of DCI Richie.’
Reuben Symonds sighed regretfully.
‘What can I tell you? It was me that told Richie to lay off them.’
‘I don’t need to see them exactly. Especially if they are at school. I just wanted to hear their side of the story.’
‘Hasn’t Richie told you?’
‘No.’
Symonds seemed pleased with this.
‘Well, if I tell you what I told him, will you be happy?’
‘I hope so.’
He sighed.
‘Okay, there were about seven of them—not just the two of them. Been down to get a McMuffin down Kings Cross. That bit was just the two of them: Djbril and Darren. That’s where they were identified. That’s why only they was identified. CCTV. No hoods or caps in McDonalds, you see.’
‘Up early, weren’t they?’
Symonds laughed. ‘Hadn’t been to bed. The little rascals.’
‘Bit young to be out all night?’
‘They weren’t out. Not out-out. Round Darren’s gaming.’
‘After McDonalds they walked home?’
‘Some walked. Some on bikes. You know these kids.’
‘And they witnessed the mugging?’
‘Witnessed is big word. They see the end of it. So they say. Just these guys in suits, they say, batting an old man on the floor. They thought he was a tramp, as if that mattered.’
‘What did they do?’
‘They started to go over. God knows what was in their little minds. We tell them to stay away from that stuff. Do not get involved.’
‘But they didn’t?’
‘No, these guys—shaven headed, white guys in suits, suits with red linings—one of them stands up and shows them he was carrying a gun. Doesn’t even get it out. Just shows them the holster. Clear warning to go away.’
‘And they did?’
‘Course they didn’t. They waited, and then they went over. They had enough sense not to touch the old guy. They pick up the mobile. One of the little kids. Darren tells him to drop it. So the kid drops it into a bin. Keep Britain Tidy. Another bus was coming along now so they leg it.’
‘Quite a lot there. I still can’t understand why Richie didn’t follow it up with the boys. Take statements. No disrespect to you.’
‘None taken.’ Reuben Symonds looked pained. ‘It is a difficult time at the moment, what with the hot weather. The community don’t want to see anything pinned on one of their own. Besides I get the sense Richie knows who done it. Might need the boys as witnesses later but not till he’s got them guys under lock and key.’
‘Who do you think they are?’
‘No idea. Could be anyone these days the way London is.’ He looked up. ‘What about you?’
‘Me? I’m out of date. One thing I do know is that most muggings don’t become murders. This isn’t New York or Bogota. In London, most serious crime is professionalised.’
‘That’s what I thought,’ he said. ‘A hit.’
‘Even so,’ I said. ‘Richie would need the boys’ statements now. It doesn’t make sense.’
‘Nothing you guys do makes sense to me,’ Reuben Symonds said. ‘That’s one of the problems.’
Chapter Five
When I left the Community Office, I rolled a cigarette and lit it. My phone buzzed in my breast pocket like a heart tremor. There were three missed calls on my mobile. They were all from Mrs Jenny Forbes-Marchant. On the third occasion she had left a rather exasperated message asking me to call her back. I figured she had something to tell me, so I thought I’d go and hear it first hand while I was in London. See if she could tell me anything about her father’s death and why the police were not investigating it. But mostly I wanted to know if Doug Richie was back to his old tricks. His involvement didn’t exactly make it personal, but my involvement did. I could not get over the fact that Sir Simeon Marchant was on his way to see me when he was killed. And the fact that I could have done something to stop it still rankled with me—badly.
Like her father before her Jenny Forbes-Marchant was not a difficult person to locate. Sometimes I wonder what investigators did before the internet. Probably spent a lot of time on the phone, or tapping other people’s.
Covert surveillance had been in the news all summer. First, the ongoing saga of tabloid newspapers hacking the mobile phones of celebrities or victims of crime, allegedly with the support of the Metropolitan Police. More recently, the revelations of a defence contractor working for the US National Security Agency, one Edward Snowden, who said the NSA had access to the unencrypted files of all internet service providers. Like a lot of people, I was not surprised the spooks were doing it, just that they were dumb enough to get caught.
But that was whistleblowers for you, and it was also what you got for subcontracting your work to clever people with an axe to grind. The newspapers were obsessed by conspiracies, but all I saw was the usual bureaucracy and cock-ups.
I decided to get a bus to Marble Arch and walk across the park to Mrs Jenny Forbes-Marchant’s place of gainful employment. The Persimmon Gallery was farther along Knightsbridge than I expected—Kensington Road end—so I was very hot and marginally bothered by the time I’d crossed the Serpentine, skirted Rotten Row and found my way out of Prince of Wales Gate. I felt out of place. People in this part of London did not look like they perspired. If they did, it was fragrant variety of sweat and probably marketed in chunky bottles by Christian Dior or Tommy Hilfiger. I took my jacket off, realised my shirt was wet through, and promptly put it back on again. This is it, I thought. I’m going to ask a few questions just to put my mind at rest and then catch the first train back to Canterbury.
The gallery was wedged between two similar establishments that provided the sort of goods the wealthy just could not do without. One sold the most expensive kitchen utensils I have ever seen—there was a wire eggcup retailing at forty pounds sterling—the other specialised in the sort of antiques that do not have pric
es on them. I wondered if these places were shops at all or merely works of art in their own right—they were so beautifully laid out and so empty. The Persimmon Gallery was deserted too. Plenty of fashionable white space, black leather sofas and the odd painting dotted around the walls for the sake of appearances.
Before going in I did a fly past and saw Mrs Forbes-Marchant at the far end of the gallery sitting at a desk. She was lit by the computer screen she was looking at. Intently, I thought. You learn a lot about people when they think they are unobserved. Unless they are online. Then they all look the same.
I went in.
The gallery’s website had said that the Persimmon was committed to supporting developing artists. At least it didn’t specialise in the type of Brit Art that cut animals in half and put them in aspic, or glued the artist’s fingernails to a map of Auschwitz. I was not up to speed with the latest fashions in the art world, but I was familiar enough with the sort of things represented in Mrs Forbes-Marchant’s gallery. The current show consisted of self-portraits of the artist taken on her mobile phone then transferred as a series of dots to large Daler boards. The artist had created the final image through a collage of photographs of mobile phones that were cut up to give the palette needed. The exhibition was called ‘Selfies’ and, even I had to admit, it was very clever. There was one large painting—oil on canvas—that caught my eye and I stopped at it. Despite its size, it had the most delicate brushstrokes all going in the same direction, horizontally across the canvas.
Jenny Forbes-Marchant came over. She was still the tall, rather elegant woman I had met that morning at St Pancras Coroner’s Court. But this was a more relaxed version and seemed, on the face of it at least, marginally less inclined to scratch your eyes out. She had changed out of her Jaeger suit and was now in her work clothes: a tight black dress and a single row of pearls that accented her tan, bare legs—also tanned—and black court shoes. She looked confident and expensive, and she didn’t seem at all surprised to see me.
‘Mr Becket,’ she said, holding out her hand. ‘Thank you for coming.’
