Which was the clincher. He let his baton drop and telescoped it in.
‘Go on,’ he said. ‘Go home.’
The man didn’t move.
‘Hop it.’ And when the man still didn’t make a move, it was Billy who chose to walk away.
9.45 p.m.
A rap on his office door. A head poked round. ‘Excuse me, Home Secretary.’ Some junior from the outer office.
‘Can’t you see I’m in the middle of something?’ Usually enough to rid himself of unwanted interruptions.
Not this time. ‘Home Secretary?’
‘Yes?’ When he jerked his head up, he was revisited by the wash of the sunset that had bloodied the sky. ‘What is it?’
‘Your wife.’
Again he seemed to hear that unrelenting ticking of a clock that had punctuated his day. ‘What about her?’
‘She’s here.’
His first thought was that he’d forgotten something they were supposed to be doing together, although he couldn’t think what that might be. His second thought, as he stretched across for his diary, was that she had come to spy on him.
‘Should I . . . ?’
‘Yes, yes. Show her in. But before you do,’ he pointed at the wall clock, ‘Take that out, will you?’
He pushed away the document he’d been working on as the junior rose up on tiptoes to hook the clock off the wall and carried it away.
Clock gone. Merciful silence.
Which didn’t last, as he should have known it wouldn’t, because the ticking was in his head, and here it came again as Frances was practically bowed in – she had this effect on all his staff. As he made his way over to her, he couldn’t help thinking of a recent nature programme he’d half caught in which whichever Attenborough lookalike they were trying out had said that the spider commonly known as the blonde, otherwise called the yellow sac, was responsible for most bad domestic bites.
‘Darling.’ He kissed her proffered cheek, impressed as always that she had managed to keep so cool in the heat. ‘Didn’t they ring to tell you I was working late? I did ask them to.’
‘Yes, they rang. But I was in town having a drink with Amanda and we were passing by. So I thought I’d drop in.’ She continued on with her 360-degree examination of his office.
Yes, he almost said, it is big, but there’s still nowhere that I could have hidden Patricia. ‘It’s sweltering out there,’ he said and, assuming her full search must naturally include his bathroom, ‘Would you like to wash up?’
‘No, thank you. I’m fine.’ Her gaze had been snagged by the wall-mounted TV, on which the riots were silently playing. ‘Where’s that?’
‘Rockham again. It was calm earlier, but now it’s got so bad they’ve had to wheel out the water cannon – the old ones Boris got conned into buying years ago. I’m surprised they still work.’
That look, her thinking look again, which produced: ‘That might cook the PM’s goose.’
His thought as well.
Did she think like him, he wondered, or had she taught him to think like her?
‘Trouble is,’ she said, ‘it might also cook the government’s goose. Questions are already being asked as to what you’ve done to fuel such rage.’
She was always so critical. So ready to point the finger. It was getting on his nerves.
But then he told himself he was only tired. And overworked. Which, speaking of: ‘I’d love to come home with you but . . .’ he pointed at the piles of papers on his desk.
‘It’s fine,’ she said. ‘Amanda’s waiting for me downstairs.’
‘Well then . . .’
That would normally be sufficient to get her out. Not this time. Instead: ‘About your appearance at the committee.’
‘You watched?’
‘Naturally.’
He knew what she was going to say next: that he should have warned her he was going before the committee. That he usually did. But with one thing and another . . .
‘We should have talked about it beforehand,’ she said.
‘I would have consulted you, darling.’ Did the endearment sound as awkward to her as it was beginning to sound to him? ‘You know that I normally do. But I had such a lot on today, including watching the PM throwing his weight about at COBRA. And what I told the committee was true: it was my first day at Environment. I signed an already approved document. The decision had nothing to do with me.’
‘I see.’ She blinked.
‘Is there something I’m missing here?’
‘I’m not sure.’ She frowned. ‘Something about some of those names. I think we might actually have . . .’ And then her expression cleared. ‘No, perhaps I’ve got it wrong.’ She nodded in that definite way she had. ‘I have. And it’s totally correct: permission for the factory had nothing to do with you. Well,’ she was smiling, ‘I can see you have a lot on. I’ll leave you to it.’ She turned, treating him to a last sweep of her straight blonde hair, this way and that, tick, tick, exiting his office while he continued to stand there wondering what her visit had really been about.
10 p.m.
Joshua had buffed his shoes and shined them twice, so it was unlikely that the slightest strand of tobacco or smear of mud remained. Even so, his eyes kept straying down.
Nothing to do with the shoes, this he knew, and everything to do with the fact that they’d left him in that alleyway, ignoring his bangs, until he’d been forced to phone his driver to come and pull him out. With the likely result that he’d soon be the laughing stock of every bobby in London. The only reason that an exaggerated account of the incident might not be circulating in the evening paper is that the explosion of violence in Rockham – and elsewhere – was all anybody was currently interested in.
The situation was at crisis point.
A few days is all he needed. By then he’d have most of his men back from leave and enough bodies in mutual aid to get a proper hold on the situation. But he might not get those few days. Wheeling out the big guns, namely water cannon, for the first time in mainland Britain, and also the increasingly talked-about strategy of using tear gas and baton rounds, might satisfy the hangers and floggers, but anybody who had ever tried to police a disturbance in which unrelated groups of troublemakers came together to create anarchy would know how ineffective such methods of mass control could turn out to be. Never mind that their going in heavy risked provoking even more people out onto the streets, something that was already taking place in Rockham.
And there was the added headache of a maverick cop on the loose. If that got out, all kinds of hell would land on his head. If only, he couldn’t help thinking, Detective Constable Julius Jibola would go chuck himself off the nearest available cliff – after having sent a postcard to say that this is what he was planning to do.
His gaze again on his shoes. He sighed. Although Jibola’s ex-wife had been childish in her vengefulness, there was a lot of truth in what she’d had to say. Men like Jibola had been used by the old Met as cannon fodder and without regard for their well-being. And she was right as well in that many of these same officers hailed from ethnic minorities.
The Met had badly needed a new broom. Trouble was the past and too many young people in the city with nothing to lose were threatening to overwhelm his ever-thinning blue line. Never mind the unrelenting heat.
They’d had to switch off the air conditioning to help prevent an electrical blackout being created by a combination of the condition-ocracy (those lucky, or rich, enough to have air conditioning) and the boiling of kettles as people all over the capital settled down to watch the made-for-TV horror fest of the riots.
A knock. ‘Come.’ He turned to get his jacket from behind his chair. But seeing who it was who had poked his head around the door, he said, ‘Oh, it’s you, Blackstone, do come in,’ while letting the jacket lie.
‘Excuse me, sir.’ Blackstone was still peering through a crack in the door. ‘I’m after Deputy Commissioner Chahda. I thought he might be in here with you?
’
‘He had to go out.’ Which, when Chahda had told him that there was someone he had to see, and that he was leaving his assistant in charge, had come as some surprise given the rising disorder. ‘Can I be of assistance?’
‘No . . .’ A hesitation and then, ‘Well, perhaps, sir. Something odd that I, something . . .’
‘Come on in. Take a seat. Tell me what’s bothering you.’
‘Thank you, sir.’ As Blackstone made his way over to the desk, Joshua saw how damp his shirt was, the heat being an added burden for the weightier officers. ‘I don’t know if it’s important, sir.’
‘Why not let me be the judge of that?’
‘Yes, sir. Thank you sir.’ A pause and then, ‘I did talk to some of the officers, sir, who were known to have associated with Detective Constable Jibola.’
‘Yes, the Deputy Commissioner informed me that you had. I gather none of them had much to offer in the way of assistance.’
‘Afraid not, sir. They all told the same story that Jibola had dropped out of circulation. None of them had seen him for quite a while – years in some cases.’
A pause.
‘But?’
‘But the thing is, sir, something odd happened just now when I was talking to the last of them. You know how, given the pressure on the Rockham force, we have been pitching in to supply the IPCC with the relevant documentation for their inquiry into the death?’
‘Yes, I know.’
‘Well, the thing is, sir, while I was talking to the officer who knew Jibola, one of my colleagues was checking the quality of the 999 call that triggered the police visit to the community centre.’
‘The one the community leaders say would not have been made?’
‘That’s the one, sir. They’re wrong. The call was made, logged and recorded. And I have heard it. I heard a male voice expressing concern about a male IC3 behaving in an erratic manner on the Lovelace. The caller asked the police to attend in case the man needed assistance.’
‘Why is that of concern?’
‘Because, sir. Because the thing is, the officer I was talking to, the one who knew Julius Jibola, also heard the recording, and he recognised the voice. I questioned him carefully and got him to listen a couple of times: he was insistent that the caller was DC Julius Jibola.’
Wednesday
STRICTLY PRIVATE AND CONFIDENTIAL
Submission to the internal inquiry of the Metropolitan Police into Operation Bedrock
Submission OB/MPS/CC/29
To: The Office of the Inquiry into Operation Bedrock
From: The Office of the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Service
At the request of the chairman of the Inquiry Panel into Operation Bedrock, the Office of the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Service has subjected a telephone call made to the emergency services on to further scrutiny.
The call logged at 20:45:35 was to report a man behaving erratically in the area of the Lovelace estate in Rockham.
The IPCC, which is ongoing with its inquiry into the death in Rockham, agreed to release a copy of the recording to the Office of the Commissioner on the condition that no details of the call should be made public until the conclusion of the IPCC investigation.
Light equalization was used to enhance the recording by removing background interference. The call was then subjected to audio forensic analysis.
The report is attached.
In summary of its conclusions:
The 999 recording was compared with a sample of DC Julius Jibola speaking into a tape recorder during his training.
On the IAFPA consistent/distinctiveness scale, the two recordings scored a 4: i.e. that they were highly distinctive. Had not enhancement been used to isolate the voice in the 999 call, they would most likely have scored a 5: i.e. exceptionally distinctive with the possibility of these features being shared by two different speakers as remote.
It is therefore our conclusion that DC Julius Jibola did place the 999 call.
A transcript of the call is appended.
In summary:
The caller informed the emergency service operator of the erratic behaviour of a male IC3 on the Lovelace estate in Rockham. The caller was calm and provided details of location and time clearly and with patience. In his words, ‘the man, IC3, is waving a stick about and officers should attend as soon as possible to stop him hurting himself’.
The caller, who added, ‘I am currently following him to try and keep him safe,’ would not give the operator his name.
The mobile phone number of the caller was shortly thereafter rendered non-operational.
We can confirm that the mobile telephone had been supplied by SC&O10 for use by DC Julius Jibola in pursuance of his undercover activities.
This document is for the internal inquiry only and on no account should be released to the public.
5 a.m.
‘There has to be a connection if only in Jibola’s mind,’ Joshua said, ‘between his witnessing the death in the Lovelace and his taking part in the criminality. I interviewed the officer who knew him. His description matched the psychologist’s – i.e. that Jibola had been emotionally unstable for some time and that his particular sore point was what he perceived as a bias within the force against ethnic minorities.’
This statement was met, initially, by silence. Taking his eyes off his two companions, he looked around. After eighty hours of riding the tempest, energy levels tended to peak at night, with first light bringing a fall off in numbers in the streets and a corresponding decline in officers in the room. Five a.m. then became the time when least was done and the army of cleaners moved in. They were usually deployed throughout the building but these days they gave first priority to the clearing away of stained tea cups, wastepaper baskets overflowing with the detritus of fast food, and papers to be shredded in this room. Seeing both the Commissioner and his deputy present, the cleaners now quietly swept past the legs of men whose heads had slumped on their desks, before hauling the rubbish out. Soon officers of the day shift would start filtering in, along with the Bronze Commanders come to deliver their reports, re-stoking the urgency that would subside again after orders had been given to be carried out elsewhere in the Met.
For now, however, there was quiet, which Gaby Wright eventually broke. ‘If you don’t mind me saying, sir’ – despite that she must have been working round the clock, she was as tidy and as well turned out as ever – ‘we have no way of knowing what is going on in Jibola’s mind.’
‘That’s right. We don’t.’ Anil Chahda’s uniform was in contrast crumpled, as if he’d slept in it, and this despite him having taken half the night off.
‘You may both be correct. But the fact remains that if people were to find out that Jibola is one of ours – and that he was a witness at the community centre – they’d leap to the conclusion that his participation in the riots had something to do with what he witnessed. Matters are finely enough balanced without one of our officers seeming to accuse his fellows of murder. We have to neutralise Jibola before the media get their claws into him.’ Out of the corner of his eye, Joshua saw Anil Chahda yawning – what, he wondered, was the matter with the man? He concentrated his gaze on CS Wright: ‘You’ve done what you can with the resources available. What we now must do,’ seeing his deputy still yawning he raised his voice, ‘with your agreement of course, Anil, is step up officer numbers in Rockham. We’ve got to search every inch of the borough.’
One further enormous yawn before Chahda said, ‘That’s all very well, sir, but where are we going to get the men from?’
‘From here.’ Joshua used a pointer to indicate the boroughs surrounding Rockham, ‘and from here. As well as aid coming from elsewhere.’
‘That is going to leave us dangerously exposed throughout the rest of London.’
‘Well, then, we’ll have to be quick about it, won’t we? I want an observational cordon around Rockham, mobile CCTV, the lot. We have to clock anybody in and any
body out.’
‘It’s going to cause trouble.’
‘If it does, so be it. If it means bringing out water cannon, if it means deploying baton rounds’ – hearing himself say this, he thought how far he had travelled in such a short time, and then, putting steel into his voice – ‘well then, that’s what we will have to do. We have to find this man.’
7 a.m.
At the sound of his Commons’ door opening, Peter looked crossly up. First a call from Anil Chahda to warn of more trouble coming to Rockham and now somebody marching into his office without the courtesy of a knock. His irritation intensified when he saw that it was Patricia. What on earth did she think she was doing coming to his Commons room, and so early?
‘I’ve been missing you.’ She gave a smile and a cute wrinkle of her nose but, seeing him frown, added, ‘Only kidding.’
‘Come on, Patricia.’ He had no time for games. ‘We agreed to cool it.’
She raised her hand in a salute, ‘Yes, sir,’ hitting her forehead so hard it jerked her head back. ‘I’m on board with that.’
Could she be drunk?
She certainly looked more tousled than usual, with her dark hair frizzed out as it only ever was in bed. Come to think of it, she was wearing the same clothes she’d had on yesterday: had she actually been to bed? ‘So what exactly,’ he said, hardening his voice, ‘are you doing here?’
She took a step back. Pouted.
He dropped his gaze deliberately down to the papers on his desk. And heard her saying in that wheedling voice she also only ever used in bed, ‘Come on now, Petey-weetie, don’t be such a cross patch.’
She must be drunk. All he needed. He looked behind her and at the door.
She turned and, he was thankful to see, made her way towards it. He picked up his pen.
He heard the key turning in the lock.
‘What are you doing?’
She came back to stand so close to his desk that he could smell that floral scent he knew so well, and some other strange musky smell that was underlaid by the stink of stale alcohol.
Ten Days Page 24
