by Mark Raven
‘You lost, mate?’ he called.
‘No,’ I replied. ‘Are you?’
He spluttered a half-laugh. ‘We live here.’
The larger boy jumped off the back. He looked about fourteen, as much as anyone does these days.
‘Nice car,’ he said. ‘What is it? Spider?’
‘You got it.’
‘I got it,’ he said. ‘I thought I’d got it.’
‘Why don’t you run along to school and stop taking the piss?’
The boy on the BMX said, ‘Cos it’s Saturday. D’uh!’
The other boy was stroking the paintwork. I had often done the same myself.
‘You about to make me an offer?’
This time he didn’t laugh. His face was somewhere else.
‘Nice motor for a copper, anyway.’
‘Well when I left the police I found I could afford such things.’
‘You a paedo or something? Looking for little boys?’
The younger one edged closer on his bike. ‘He was here the other day talking to Reuben.’
‘What happened to your face?’ asked the larger boy.
‘Someone didn’t like it.’
‘Asking too many questions,’ volunteered the boy on the BMX.
‘Shut up, Leon.’
Other youths were joining us by one by one. They had a feral quality about them, creeping closer by soft degrees, like hyenas looking for brunch, and then backing off. Fortunately they kept their hands off the car. There were probably enough of them now to pick the Spider up and deposit us both in the Grand Union Canal. I kept talking to the larger youth, ‘Do you know Djbril or Darren?’
‘Which Darren?’
‘The one who saw the old man killed.’
‘What do you want to know?’ someone called from the back of the crowd.
It is always worrying when they don’t show their faces. It means they have thought of the next step they might need to take. And it might involve them doing something that they don’t want to be identified for in the future.
‘I just want to know who hired you to distract the old man. How much they paid you, that sort of thing.’
This prompted some shouting. I wasn’t sure if it was at me. It sounded more like they were squabbling amongst themselves. I assumed some of them didn’t know about the money. It was a long shot but I had hit the rattle.
‘The Russian guys,’ I added.
‘I thought Reuben told you,’ the voice called out. ‘We just came along after.’
‘No, you see I’ve seen what they do first hand. They get someone to distract the victim before they come along with baseball bats.’
‘How much this car worth?’ It was different voice this time.
I didn’t answer.
‘Isn’t that the case, Darren?’ I called out.
But Darren, if that was he, had gone quiet. The new voice said, ‘I’ll give you fifty quid for it.’
He stepped forward: wiry, almost six-foot, ebony unhealthy looking skin, wearing a cap under his hooded sweatshirt.
‘That how much they pay you, Djbril,’ I asked him. ‘Fifty quid? Hundred quid?’
He didn’t say he wasn’t Djbril. He didn’t look at me either. His manner suggested that my words did not count.
‘But I want a test drive first. Hand over keys.’
He held out his hand.
‘He’s police, Dee,’ someone said.
‘He ain’t. Ain’t you heard him? He ex-police. Which mean they hate him too.’
‘True,’ I said. ‘But you’re not having my car, Djbril.’
Becket, the voice of reason.
‘You gone stop me?’ Djbril said.
He sauntered up to the car. I could have probably stopped him, if I could get out of the car. But it would not be me against Djbril. These boys have a fine sense of collective endeavour, I thought, the sort of thing you are looking for in new recruits. They all would have stopped me.
I asked, ‘Have you a licence, Djbril?’
‘I don’t need one. I can drive.’
‘Okay I will drive you to a place where you can have a go. But first you need to tell me...’
Two youths jumped into the back seats. One of them flicked the top of my ear with a fingernail and laughed.
Suddenly Djbril was in my face, ‘And I tell you, old man. I don’t know nothing about no Russians pay anyone.’
The boy behind me flicked my ear again. I half-turned, off balance. Djbril jerked the door open and I fell sideways into the road. It was a soft landing, but all my bruises shouted at me at once. The boys laughed like it was the funniest thing they had seen in a very long time.
‘Should always wear a seatbelt,’ Djbril said.
He grabbed my arm and pulled me up.
Face to face, I was slightly taller than him, but he knew he could take me. He had that look on his face. He jabbed me hard in the chest. I thought about grabbing his finger, but again I froze: nothing happened. Once you think about it, the moment is gone. I just wanted to be away from that place, to slink away cursing my own folly for getting involved. He smiled at me knowing I was defeated. He could smell it on me. With the flat of his hand he moved me gently aside, and sat in the car. Someone got in next to him. A white boy, stocky, muscular, a rash of acne on his neck. I wondered if this was Darren. Djbril looked at him as if to say, See, this is how you handle things.
Aching, I leant over and removed the keys from the ignition. Djbril moved quicker than I expected, grabbed my shirt and pulled me down towards him. I almost cried with relief as I felt my hand slide out and touch the side of his neck below his ear. He froze. I whispered in his ear. ‘You're not good enough to do this Djbril. You’re just not tough enough. In thirty seconds you will be unconscious and I bet I'm the only one around here who knows CPR.’
I could feel him struggle. But the pressure point held. He seemed a strong enough lad; I hoped it would not be tested. There was no sign of him giving up. The blood would still be coursing to his brain, but slower. He could endure the pain. He had known greater pain than this. He was not going to give in. But then, neither was I.
I heard the sirens. The other lads scampered out of the back of the car. Darren gave Djbril a glance and was gone—perhaps I was wrong about collective endeavour—and I waited until someone with a keen sense of civic duty knocked me sideways.
At least it wasn’t a cell this time. True, the interview room was locked but at least they had left me with my possessions and I had not been charged with anything. Yet. I was being treated as a witness, possibly even a victim, but one who was not going anywhere. I wasn’t complaining. It was no more than I deserved.
I had spent ten minutes in the company of the duty sergeant, a detective, who had his foot in plaster so presumably was on light duties. He told me, in an accent redolent of the South Wales valleys, that he was looking forward to a quiet Saturday, some shoplifters perhaps, a little filing and listening to the football on the radio before I had spoiled it all.
I asked for my call. He told me to go ahead and then chuckled when my phone couldn’t get a signal.
‘Well, you tried,’ he said.
He looked at my details.
‘Says here you used to be in the Met. Directorate of Professional Standards, no less. Detective Chief Inspector, it says here.’
‘You're overdoing the London Welsh a bit, aren’t you?’
He ignored me as if I were a naughty schoolboy.
‘Says here that you left under a bit of a cloud.’
‘You can’t imagine how much I miss it.’
‘I heard an officer you were investigating killed himself.’
His face had gone serious. It didn’t suit him. I shrugged. What can you say to people like that?
‘So, what do you do for kicks these days, Mr Becket? Besides beating up a little kids?’
‘He wasn’t so little.’
‘He’s in the hospital, it says here. One, Djbril Mustapha. Would you say it wa
s racially motivated?’
‘Here’s my card. Ring that number please, officer, and ask to speak to Anthony Carstairs QC.’
He whistled. ‘A silk that works weekends! Now there’s a rarity.’
‘Just leave a message. He’ll pick it up.’
I wasn’t so sure. Hunt and Carstairs offered a 24-hour help line, but I had never tested it myself. The detective rose slowly.
‘Well if you would excuse me, sir. I have some phone calls to make.’
He hobbled to the door leaving the pungent aroma of sarcasm in his wake.
I never saw him again. DCI Richie must have had a blue light on from whatever leisure activity he was engaged in. It could have been the golf course but he was too extravagantly dressed even for that. He wore a pink t-shirt under a black leather jacket, tight black jeans and red Dr Marten boots. With his shaven head and lack of height he looked like a camp football hooligan, or the little one in Bronski Beat.
‘That was quick,’ I said. ‘Do you have my phone bugged?’
He smiled. ‘You're paranoid, Becket. I’ve told you before you make assumptions. The wrong ones.’
‘So enlighten me.’
‘We have you flagged on the system. Anyone lifts you, they ring me personally,’ he looked pleased with himself. ‘And I came on my Harley.’
I resisted the temptation to comment on that.
He looked down at the paperwork in his hand. He sat, but it didn’t make much difference.
‘So, you couldn’t keep your nose out of it?’
‘Out of what? I thought there was no ‘it’, Richie. I was beginning to agree with you, too. Until someone beat me up.’
‘I heard about that. How you gone about rattling the country plods’ cages.’
‘I would hardly describe DS Singh in that way. Nevertheless, he rang you, did he?’
‘I’m asking the questions, Becket. DS Singh told me that he had been investigating the disappearance of one Lee Herbert.’
‘He was one of my attackers in Chichester.’
‘Yes well, Sussex Police have been interviewing his friends and a man fitting your description allegedly attacked Herbert the night before in the same park. Broke his index finger and half-strangled him. Wasn’t aikido your thing, Becket?’
‘Jujitsu. It is a purely defensive discipline.’
‘Now it seems you have defended yourself against a child, repeat a child, who sat in your car. He’s just woken up, I hear. Haven’t you heard of reasonable force?’
‘I have. But he was no child. He was old enough to be the accomplice in the killing of an eighty-seven year old man.’
Then I banged on a bit about the link between the two attacks. Not for the edification of DCI Richie, as I was sure he knew all about it and was fully occupied not doing anything about it.
It was the thing I was always saying while I was in the Met: deal with the crime in front of you. Don’t let people go free so they can be your grass or lead you unwittingly to bigger fish. Once you do that the criminal justice system becomes relative and people think it is a system you can play. The worst part was that it made coppers think like, and sometimes behave like, criminals. Sometimes it made you think like the civil servants across the river at MI5. They will always tell you there is a bigger picture. But tell that to the woman raped by the informant who got off lightly the week before. I have been in interviews like that. Victims ask you some uncomfortable questions.
Clearly I was telling Richie nothing new or arguments he had not rehearsed for himself in front of the bathroom mirror. He just didn’t agree with me.
‘Finished?’
‘Here endeth the lesson.’
‘Change the record, Becket.’
‘Jimmy Somerville!’ I said. ‘Of Bronski Beat and the Communards fame. That’s who you remind me of!’
Richie gave me a long, pitying look.
And he got up and left.
Haven’t you heard of reasonable force? I had. But I was beginning to think that reason had not much to do with my behaviour.
Time slipped by. I considered my sins. The next person who came through the door was the antithesis of DCI Richie. He was tall, lithe, black and carried himself like an athlete. And he looked very, very pissed off with me.
Reuben Symonds.
We were parked in front of the St Pancras Grand Hotel, which is part of the restored station’s neo-gothic facade. The only difference was that where nineteenth century porters and pickpockets had scurried, here were concierges who would park your car for you and, out by the entrance, security men the size of small trucks who might or might not let you in. One of these had waved Reuben Symonds through as he drove my Spider up the station concourse. He parked, got out and stood staring down the Euston Road, his hands leaning on the wall, clenching and unclenching his fists.
We hadn’t exchanged a word on the drive from the police station. He insisted on driving and accelerated away more quickly than a car of the Alfa’s vintage would have appreciated. Now, I sat listening to her tick in irritation, and then got out and walked over to him.
‘I know what you were trying to do,’ he said. ‘Do you realise what it would mean to get that boy arrested?’
I couldn’t say that I didn’t care, because I found I did. I had gone to the Alconbury with no intention of hurting Djbril or Darren, and the sight of the lad on the pavement being tended to by a female police constable was something I felt ashamed of. I couldn’t win. And now there was nothing to be gained by showing weakness.
‘Yes, I wanted to get them booked, even if it meant my car being smashed up. Yes, I wanted them in the criminal justice system because then Richie and you would have to do something about it.’
He turned and almost spat the words, ‘Do what? Do something about what exactly? You're so full of shit!’
‘Tell me the truth,’ I said. ‘You lied to me, Reuben.’
‘Look at you! You know fuck all,’ he said. ‘About me, about Djbril. You know where he came from? What it is like where he came from? Mogadishu, man. He’s seen more death than you or I ever will.’
‘You lied to me about their involvement. You said they only saw it. You didn’t say they stopped an old man on the street—just across there—while some blokes came and beat the shit out of him.’
‘They didn’t know that was going to happen. How could they?’
‘I don’t know. You tell me. Because I’m interested. You see a few days ago the same thing happened to me. Same routine... so I'm very interested. Get it? Once you’re an interested party you have to do something about it. That’s the way it works.’
Is that the way it works? I asked myself. Do you really believe your own rhetoric, Becket?
Self-doubt must have flickered across my face. For a moment I thought he was going to hit me. There were witnesses, plenty of them, but that is not what stopped him. Reuben Symonds had the sort of self-control that was hard won and highly valued. It was something I did not possess, whatever side of the argument I was on.
‘Look Becket, they don’t volunteer that sort of information even to me. Darren told Pete. Pete told me. I can’t give that information out to just anyone. Unless no one would talk to us at all.’
‘You should have told someone.’
‘I did. I told Richie. But he said it would complicate matters.’
‘Is that why the police didn’t press charges against me?’
‘No, he’s a minor. His mum didn’t press charges. I saw her at the hospital.’
‘So it was you?’
‘No,’ he said patiently. ‘It was not me. His mum saw the whole thing. She doesn’t speak much English. But between you and me she thought it might do her son some good. Knock some sense into him.’
I turned and leaned back against the wall. The hotel loomed above us. Reuben Symonds glanced up. He got out his wallet.
‘She asked me to give this to you.’ It was a fifty-pound note.
‘So they hadn’t spent it?’
/> ‘This is it. Evidence, of sorts.’
I took it from him, opened my own wallet and counted out five tens. ‘Put it in the community chest, or something.’
He smiled and took it off me. He nodded up at the St Pancras Grand.
‘You know how much it costs to stay here? £400 per night minimum. That’s just a room. Breakfast will cost you another twenty-five, each. Dinner what? Fifty, sixty, seventy? Before you add the wine. I get people jobs here—ex-cons, kids with no qualifications, people the government call ‘NEETs’. Not in education or employment or training.’ He laughed bitterly. ‘Know how much they pay them in employment? Minimum wage or, if they are an Apprentice, a hundred quid a week. Where does all the money go? Not to them, that’s for sure. Sometimes, I feel London is a game of Monopoly.’
He walked away and wandered down to see the security guard on the gate. He didn’t look back or wave when I passed them minutes later and joined the traffic on the Euston Road.
Chapter Sixteen
The next day I did nothing. I lay in bed and I didn’t move. I didn’t get up and I didn’t make a cup of tea. I didn’t toast any wholemeal bread or boil a pan of healthy but tasty porridge oats. I neglected to shower and I didn’t shave. I would not have even bothered going to the toilet if my bladder had not gone radioactive on me. It was Sunday. The Cathedral called the faithful to prayer with a persistent angelus, but I stayed put. I had no reason to go anywhere and I didn’t want to talk to anyone either. Let alone God. If I could have slept any longer I would have. But I was all slept-out. I had got home at eight the previous evening and managed to sleep thirteen hours. Some sort of Becket record. The dressing had come off in the night but there was no blood on the pillows, so I left my stitches exposed to the wholesome air. In the mirror I was beginning to look normal but, then, my norms were low, very low.
Anthony Carstairs had left a message to say that by the time he had got through to my friends in the Police of the Metropolis, I had been released without charge and, by the way, thanks very much for ruining a perfectly good lunch at a lovely little place in Whitstable.
I dared not ring him back. Wait till the next time you’re arrested, Becket, I thought.
