The Crime Tsar

by Nichola McAuliffe

  Carter and Shackleton made their way to the door. Their progress was slow because everyone wanted to have a word, a touch, a smile, and they were as gracious as monarchs blessing scrofulous petitioners. Danny and Vernon, without a word, moved to be close to their chiefs, reflected influence falling like fairy dust on to them. It wouldn’t hurt the courtiers to keep in with the deputies, particularly Carter’s. After all, the future could well be black.

  Certainly Danny’s immediate horizon was, black and carrying a tray of canapés.

  She beamed at him and said, ‘Nice to see a dark face outside the kitchen here. You with Mr Carter?’ She was nodding, answering her own question.

  ‘He’s a nice man, eh? And you too? You a nice man? I think so. Too nice. Watch the lady, not the birdie. You like these? Fish, little eggs from a fish. Take it. The lady’s going to mash him up. Mash up his life.’

  She put a handful of lumpfish-caviar-covered Doritos on his paper plate. He wanted to push them away; he felt he should question her but felt odd and distant as if mildly hypnotised. By the time he blinked his way back into focus she had gone and for all her bulk, he couldn’t see her.

  Vernon was being poured a drink by a couple of young ACCs keen to impress. Vernon, amused by the futility of their efforts with him, was telling stories. ‘… apparently a woman phoned Sussex police and reported she’d found a hole in the road – they put her through to lost property.’ The men guffawed.

  Danny looked at them and realised they hadn’t seen the waitress. In a hot room overfilled with people he felt cold. He looked at his watch. Twenty to eight. The devil flew at twenty to.

  ‘So, Danny, you applying for Chief when the musical chairs start?’ Barnard asked, still watching the triumphal exit of the heirs apparent. Relieved, Danny smiled and turned on the charm.

  Tom, as always, had Gordon standing by armed and ready. Shackleton’s brief secondment to the anti-terrorist unit, known to the unreconstructed as the raghead department, made him vulnerable to attack. The unit had worked closely with intelligence departments busy since the Middle East replaced the Soviet Union as the barbarian at the gates.

  The Irish had never had Shackleton on their lists but domestic Islamic fundamentalists had more than once expressed a wish to end his life, despite arguments and objections from the moderates. Since the war, notwithstanding their reassurances, Gordon always carried a gun and had been glad to become the Chief’s driver, as the late nights and long engagements kept him away from both his shrill wife and shrill girlfriend.

  Back at the house Shackleton installed Gordon in the kitchen with the television, his biryani and an invitation to help himself to mineral water.

  In the living room the chiefs took refuge in whisky, beer and curry camaraderie. They talked about the election, carefully avoiding what it meant to both their futures if the unthinkable happened and the government lost. Jackets off and ties slack, the two men were really enjoying themselves. Each was a prince politic, perched on a platform of achievement, but neither was satisfied. Sitting eating vindaloo out of foil containers, watching highlights of Manchester United thrashing Arsenal, was a taste of the fraternal past neither had had.

  Shackleton brought in another couple of beers, no glasses, by the neck. Whisky chasers in tumblers. Jenni would not have approved. He stopped, looking down at Carter hunched over his curry, watching television intently. Was it the beer? Jenni not being there? He felt a further encroachment of reluctant softness. A warmth towards Carter. What did it matter if he was Crime Tsar?

  ‘A fuck of a lot.’ Jenni’s clear voice was loud in his head.

  ‘Beer?’

  ‘Thanks.’ Carter looked up, taking the bottle.

  Disney, pure Disney, that face, the big eyes and tremulous mouth. No face for a chief constable. And the voice, beautifully modulated though light, the words rapidly formed and fluently delivered. It had the diffident confidence of class and education. There had been a piece in the local papers when James Bond was about to be re-cast, with pictures of likely candidates, and among the actors and models was Geoffrey Carter: ‘Our Own Chief Constable’, darling of grannies on housing estates.

  Shackleton could see why Carter was so popular with the public and the politicians but he knew damn well he wasn’t as good a policeman as he was. But what did that have to do with anything? Carter was a lucky pretty boy. Shackleton was relieved to feel the poison seeping back into his soul. He felt exposed without it.

  ‘I mustn’t be too late, it’s not fair to Eleri, and tomorrow’s going to be a long day.’

  Carter was ACPO spokesman on drugs and had been invited by everyone from gay daytime presenters to heavyweight news Rottweilers to comment on the government’s new approach to drugs, to be announced the next morning.

  ‘Anything new in it?’

  Carter laughed.

  ‘Sure. Free heroin for pensioners on the NHS.’

  Carter wanted to be indiscreet, wanted to make a waspish comment at the expense of the latest Home Office minister to be given responsibility for the great plague, but discretion had always been his better part. He concentrated on the football. Shackleton felt the sting of being put in his place.

  By half-time both men were slightly pissed. They were so used to the self-discipline of moderation in all things that the alcohol took hold quickly and unexpectedly. They found themselves talking about sport, cars and work with passion and sentiment. Carter became expansive about Shackleton’s ability and the transformation of his force since taking over. Shackleton in return wanted to tell Carter that it would be all right, they’d work together, he would persuade Jenni to leave well alone. That this was men’s business and her scheming was surplus to requirements. Had he ever been there before he would have recognised his mood as alcoholic fondness, the forerunner of morning regret. Shackleton suddenly felt angry with Jenni, determined to put her in her place.

  Carter was looking at the framed photographs of the children. He picked one up of Jason.

  ‘Your son?’

  Shackleton nodded.

  Carter contemplated the handsome young face through a haze of memory and drink.

  ‘Have you ever done anything you’re ashamed of?’

  Shackleton didn’t understand the question.

  ‘I don’t mean little things, like …’ Carter thought hard, swaying slightly. ‘Peeing on next door’s dahlias, but something unforgivable.’

  Shackleton thought then shook his head.

  ‘Why?’ he asked.

  ‘Because I have and I’m desperately afraid I’ll have to pay for it. Eleri’s pregnant, you know …’

  How could he not know – Jenni had spent more time with her than at home since it was announced.

  ‘… and I’m afraid. We were never supposed to be able to have children of our own. You couldn’t understand what that means. It’s as if you’re on a round earth and I’m on a flat. You will never fall off into obscurity, your descendants will just keep circling the earth, safely bound by the gravity of fertility. And now? I feel like a man, like I’ve joined the human race … But I did something and … I’m frightened, really frightened. Does this make sense?’ Carter looked at him, searching for forgiveness and protection. Shackleton, liberated by the drink, wanted to help. He waited. Carter seemed to have forgotten what he was saying, he was staring at the photo of Jason again.

  ‘Your son. I’d always envied you for him. Your generation of a dynasty. Shackletons stretching down the millennia to the crack of doom.’

  He paused, serious again.

  ‘I have to pay for what I did. What if I have to pay with this baby?’

  Shackleton struggled for words.

  ‘Life’s not like that.’

  ‘Hubris … I want the job as much as I want the baby.’

  Shackleton took refuge in bluff dismissal.

  ‘Don’t talk daft.’

  ‘Yes, daft. Yes … those whom the gods wish to destroy first they make mad.’

  S
hackleton didn’t know where to go.

  ‘So what was it? What did you do?’

  Having asked the question he was interested in the answer, although Carter’s soul-searching made him uncomfortable. Not embarrassed but inadequate, as if they were involved in an emotional You show me yours and I’ll show you mine.

  Shackleton was shocked to see Carter was on the verge of tears, his face contorted with the effort of keeping them back. A Canute of salt streams. Not having a handkerchief Shackleton offered him his beer. Carter nodded and gulped at the bottle.

  ‘I killed someone.’

  Shackleton was shocked. Suddenly sober. Not because of Carter’s sin but because of his own, lying untouched in his subconscious. He saw Leroy, his eyes. Then no eyes, no face.

  ‘Do you remember Trevor Percy?’

  ‘Child killer.’

  ‘Yeah.’ Carter had found an earlier voice, the accent of the Police Federation, the way he’d had to speak on the way up. ‘Little girl, Melanie Tustin, nine years old, raped, strangled, dumped naked in a layby on the A3.’

  ‘You worked on that?’

  ‘Proudest day of my life when he went down. Fat pasty bastard. Looked like a child killer. Bit backward too. Thirty-two and still lived with his mother. We wanted him … we really wanted him to be the one. So he was.’

  ‘I remember. What happened?’

  ‘He did his time. Sixteen years. Mainly on the nonce’s wing at Maidstone – didn’t stop him getting beaten up though, stabbed a couple of times, and he lost an ear when some avenging angel bit it off. He got out on an unsafe conviction, a technicality. Went back to live with his mother. She’d stayed in the same house, never gave up telling anyone who’d listen her son was innocent. I saw him one day walking back from the shops, shambling along carrying a string bag full of potatoes and a cabbage. That’s what they lived on, cabbage soup and potatoes.’ He paused.

  The two men drank in silence.

  ‘He was found in a kiddies’ playground. Beaten to a pulp and castrated. Bled to death. Nobody saw anything.’

  Shackleton shrugged imperceptibly. Carter didn’t see, he could only see the past.

  ‘When Melanie was found she had a pair of men’s pants tied round her neck, plenty of semen on them. Enough to get a conviction. But they were damaged, contaminated. Big problem. We had the body, we had the killer but no concrete evidence. Trevor Percy was going to walk and the police would be a laughing stock …’ Carter took a breath as though trying to find clean air. ‘He was always playing with himself – that was what had led us to him in the first place, schoolgirls saying he’d touched his thingy in front of them. I’ve never told anyone this before … oh God.’

  He pushed himself on.

  ‘I was a DC, cocky, trying to make friends among lads who thought I was a bit of a ponce. Proving what a good bloke I was. But most of all I wanted to impress my DCI. He was absolutely sure it was Percy, all the circumstantial pointed to him. He was seen in the area, he knew little Melanie, he’d given her and her friends sweets and, damning evidence, turned their skipping rope when she and her friends were playing in the park. And he was always drinking Coca-Cola, important point. So we rounded him up and he went in with my DCI. Admitted he’d done it. Christ, after four and a half days with that sadistic bastard I’d have admitted shooting J.F.K. Anyway, we got our statement …’

  Shackleton couldn’t see the problem. If the man was guilty, what did it matter how the verdict was reached. The Police and Criminal Evidence Act was, at the time, just a figment of hopeful imagination.

  ‘I shouldn’t let it get you down, we’ve all bent the rules, but as long as the outcome’s satisfactory …’

  ‘Oh yes, more than satisfactory. Gold-plated textbook conviction. DCI got a commendation and finished up a Chief Superintendent. But Percy didn’t do it, Tom. He didn’t do it.’ Carter leaned forward, desperate for Shackleton to understand. ‘There had definitely been intercourse but the killer poured the girl’s Coca-Cola into her. OK, points to our Trevor. The scientists couldn’t identify the vaginal semen. One or two hairs were found but forensics weren’t what they are now and they couldn’t get a definite match. But there had definitely been penile penetration and definite ejaculation.

  ‘But… Trevor Percy couldn’t orgasm. And according to what he said to me he didn’t even know what an erection was. I believed him. He was telling the truth. He’d never had an erection. I was on nights while he was in the cells and he was so scared, so pathetic, I talked to him. All the time we talked he’d have his cock out and be stroking it, like a pet. It comforted him, I suppose. He never got it hard. Never. But he didn’t tell his brief, never said a word. He had the mind of a child, he didn’t understand what was going on. When I asked him about his penis he just kept saying it was bad. That his mother had said they got boys into trouble …’

  Carter paused. Shackleton saw his jaw open and set at an odd angle, his tongue pressed against his bottom teeth. When he spoke his voice was a little too high, a little uncertain.

  ‘I went to the DCI. Old was his name. I’ll never forget him, fortyish, round eyes and a long crew cut. God’s chosen own. He took me into one of the interview rooms. Sat me down. I remember I had a bar of chocolate, I offered him a bit. He didn’t sneer exactly, he was a genius at never quite doing enough for you to accuse him of anything … but he made me feel as if I was trying to bribe him. I told him about Percy. Told him he couldn’t possibly have done it and that there was one more thing, his mother bought all his underwear at British Home Stores. He wore BHS knickers, like girls’ knickers. The pants round the child’s throat were Y-fronts. From K Mart.’

  Carter stopped again. Shackleton gave him another whisky. Carter looked at it but didn’t drink. He controlled himself and continued.

  ‘Old stared at me. I’ll never forget those round blank eyes. Like a surprised bird. And that ridiculous lavatory-brush haircut …’

  Shackleton smiled.

  ‘Yes, it’s always that or what Jenni calls bouffant with moustache.’

  Carter tried to laugh but it didn’t come.

  ‘He said if I wanted to stay a detective constable for the rest of my life I was quite welcome to repeat my story outside that room but if I’d just forget it as it wasn’t really evidence, just hearsay, the future could look quite bright. I was a fast-tracker, like you. It wasn’t the future looking bright I was worried about, it was the possibility of it turning dark. I wasn’t so naïve I didn’t know what he meant or that membership of his Lodge wouldn’t be useful. I caved in. No contest.

  ‘I should have spoken up but I didn’t. I couldn’t. I could have gone to the creeper squad … maybe I should have told his defence … I don’t know. I thought I had more to lose than Trevor Percy. I thought maybe I’d feel better talking about it. But I don’t. I didn’t just kill him, I tortured him and his mother for sixteen years first.’ Carter made one last effort to control himself. ‘I had a look at the autopsy report. Undeveloped, non-functioning sexual organs. Bit late then …’

  The tears were now running down Carter’s face. Shackleton wanted to dismiss this display as self-pity but he couldn’t. He put his hand on Carter’s shoulder. He had no belief in poetic justice and related Carter’s fears to a sort of superstition. Leroy had never haunted him nor any other, lesser, ruthless action he’d taken. Leroy had died before he’d had a chance to kill. It was a form of justice. And Trevor Percy? The world was not a poorer place without him. It was sad but not a tragedy.

  ‘Geoffrey, come on. Nothing’s going to happen to your kid. Everything’ll be fine. Young coppers make mistakes. You’re sorry, that’s enough. There’s nothing you can do about it now.’

  Shackleton’s hand on his shoulder and the brief paternal words undid him. He cried as Shackleton had only ever seen a woman cry. He tried to staunch the flow.

  ‘Look, you’re not the only one who’s ashamed of something in the past. But that’s where it is. The past. There’s no payback �
�� you’re carrying your punishment with you.’

  So where was his? No, it was just words, verbal bandaging. He didn’t believe what he’d just said. Shackleton did what he did. Regret scratched but had never dug deep.

  But what would he feel about the destruction of Carter? What if Jenni’s plan was to do what had been done to Trevor and Leroy? What was the difference? No, this was too confusing; it blurred the lines of his certainties. Carter was an obstacle to his ambition. Need like his justified any means.

  The doorbell rang. Automatically Shackleton looked at his watch. Apologising to Carter he went to the door. The disturbance was enough to make Carter pull himself together.

  ‘Tom, I’m so sorry. I’ve lost my cheque-guarantee card. It’s in my driving-licence folder and I remember I put it down on the coffee table in the living room. I’m so sorry, may I fetch it?’

  Lucy. What on earth was she talking about.

  ‘Sure. Go through.’

  She was suprised to see Carter – she knew him immediately. He was a Newsnight pin-up. Polite introductions and pleas to be excused replaced emotion. Shackleton was relieved. Everything was back to normal.

  ‘Are you all right?’

  Lucy, always alive to misery, reached out and touched Carter’s arm.

  The unexpected tenderness of the gesture completely undermined his self-control. He was sobbing and apologising. He reeked of whisky and beer but to Lucy he was a lost soul. She rocked him as she’d rocked Shackleton and he felt a shaft of jealousy. She was murmuring a litany of comfort and even managed to produce a crumpled tissue from her pocket. Shackleton half expected her to lick it and wipe Carter’s face. In a minute she’d given more comfort than he had in a whole evening. But that was what women did. Especially this woman. He didn’t want her to be holding another man. He couldn’t bear her giving his affection and gentle reassurance to someone else. Like a child with its mother he couldn’t bear to share her. How could this plain, ordinary woman get so far inside him?

  What was she doing now? Carter, having pulled himself together, was trying to leave, gathering as much dignity as he could find. Lucy was standing behind him and seemed to be trying to say something.