The Kings of London

by William Shaw

  That evening, Breen was sitting drawing the almost-empty bottle of Chivas Regal that Tozer had stolen from the Christmas party, sitting in his father’s chair with a sketch pad on his lap when Carmichael called.

  It was ten o’clock. Carmichael had been drinking and smoking. His voice was always deeper after three or four pints.

  ‘Paddy? You were bloody right,’ he said. ‘The address in Abbey Gardens? Back in the summer we were watching the place. We had a tip-off they were selling drugs.’

  ‘The squat?’

  Carmichael began coughing into the phone.

  ‘Where are you, John?’

  ‘Some private members’ club in Victoria. A few of the lads go there. It’s our place.’

  ‘You watched the squat. But you never raided the place? Was the place clean, then?’

  ‘No. The opposite,’ said Carmichael. There was the sound of a fruit machine paying out, coins pouring into the tray. ‘I only found this out from talking to a couple of the old guys here. One of them was watching the place for us. But there’s nothing in the files at all. Not a mention of it. I already looked.’

  Breen said, ‘Nothing on the files?’

  Carmichael was coughing again. A rich, forty-a-day cough. ‘Not surprising, given the way the Drug Squad operates. But this feller I just been buying drinks for says there he remembered writing up reports about it.’

  ‘And no raid or anything?’

  Carmichael said something he couldn’t hear.

  ‘Speak up,’ said Breen. He put his finger in his ear to try to drown out the rock music.

  ‘Listen. He says the word came from on top. Lay off them. One day they were about to raid it. Next, nothing. And somebody must have got rid of the files. The reports he wrote are gone.’

  Breen said, ‘What do you mean, “from on top”?’

  ‘I don’t know. I asked but he didn’t know either. The Inspector? Commissioner? The Pope? Harold ruddy Wilson? I don’t know. But serious. Because there’s no record of us ever watching it, and there should be.’

  ‘You sure?’

  The pips went on the phone.

  ‘Bollocks,’ said Carmichael.

  ‘Give me a number and I’ll call you back.’

  Breen heard the sound of more coins clunking into the phone box.

  ‘It’s OK. I got… I got it.’

  ‘You drunk, John?’

  ‘Clobbered, Paddy. All sails hoisted. But I’m sure. This guy is OK.’

  ‘You should go home.’

  ‘Who wants to go home?’ said Carmichael. ‘You should come out. I bet you’re sitting at home on your own, aren’t you? Come and I’ll buy you a drink. Two drinks. We used to be mates, you and me.’

  ‘We still are mates.’

  ‘Good mates, though. Remember?’

  ‘I’ve just been preoccupied, John.’

  ‘Yeah. Well.’

  The pips went again. He could hear Carmichael swearing, trying to find change, before the long beep disconnected them.

  Breen sat back in the chair for a while after that, thinking. Then he went to the phone again, picked it up and dialled.

  ‘Jones?’ he said.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ said Jones.

  ‘Were you asleep?’

  ‘No.’

  Breen could hear Jones’s wife in the background: ‘Who’s that?’ The sound of pop music on the radio.

  ‘It’s Paddy Breen,’ Jones said.

  ‘What’s he doing calling at this time of night?’

  ‘I want a favour,’ said Breen.

  That night he went for a walk around Stoke Newington. The streets were dark and colourless. On Kingsland Road he startled a stray dog rummaging at an overturned rubbish bin. He thought he should go and see if they were showing the Buster Keaton movie, the one his father had liked, but when he reached the cinema he discovered it had been replaced by a Hammer horror movie.

  He thought about Shirley and hoped she had found a place somewhere far away. Somewhere with bright white houses and blue water, with a beach so Charlie could drop into the sea and swim, free of London’s awkward gravity.

  THIRTY-TWO

  On the last Monday of the year Jones met Breen outside the Home Office building in Petty France, the same building where Breen had gone a month earlier to meet Pugh’s father.

  ‘What are we doing here?’ asked Jones. He was holding an umbrella that flapped in the wind.

  ‘Thanks for coming. How’s your wife?’

  ‘I have to be back at my desk in half an hour. Will this take long? What’s going on?’

  ‘Better if you don’t know.’

  ‘What?’

  As they were standing there, a black Rover drew up outside the main doors. Now someone was holding the door open. A familiar-looking man with grey hair and spectacles came out of the doors of the building, an aide on either side.

  ‘Bloody hell. Is that…? He looks ordinary in real life.’ The Home Secretary got into the car and drove away.

  ‘I’m just meeting someone. I want it to look good,’ said Breen.

  ‘Look good? What do you mean?’

  ‘Don’t worry about it. It’ll be fine.’

  Jones was all nerves. ‘Paddy, we can’t come here. The bloody Home Office. What are you getting me into? You’re suspended. I’m going for Sergeant. I can’t cock that up.’

  Breen said, ‘It’s OK, I promise. You won’t get into trouble.’ He hoped. ‘Just come with me and say nothing.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I just need someone to look scary.’

  ‘Do I look scary?’ said Jones, brightening.

  ‘Whatever this man says, don’t react. OK? Just keep your eyes on him.’

  ‘Just saying. I can’t afford trouble, Paddy. I got a baby coming and all.’

  Again they waited in the lobby, Jones like a pupil waiting to see the headmaster.

  ‘Don’t act nervous.’

  ‘What are you getting me into, Paddy? Who is this bloke?’

  Breen said, ‘A favour. It’s all I ask.’

  Phones rang. People trotted here and there, clutching folders and newspapers. Civil servants in pinstripes laughed loudly and called each other by nicknames that all ended in ‘y’.

  Fifteen minutes passed. Twenty.

  ‘I’ve got to go in a second. I’ve got stuff to do.’

  ‘Just five more minutes,’ said Breen.

  Eventually the young man at the desk said, ‘Mr Tarpey will be with you shortly.’

  Tarpey had commandeered a desk in an office at the top of the stairs, in what might once have been the servants’ quarters of this old building. Tarpey opened the door, as ironed and crisp as ever. There was a red carnation in a small glass vase on his desk.

  ‘Good to see you, Mr Breen,’ he said, holding out his big hand. ‘And this is?’

  ‘Constable Jones. Marylebone CID.’

  Tarpey frowned, skipped a beat. ‘But the investigation is done? I think the Home Office should have made that absolutely clear.’

  Without being asked, Breen sat down. Jones remained standing behind him.

  ‘This is another investigation, Mr Tarpey.’

  Tarpey stared at Breen for a second.

  ‘I’m not one hundred per cent sure I understand you,’ he said. He pulled his chair closer to his desk.

  Breen took a moment to look around the office. The room was full of grey filing cabinets and piles of yellowing papers. On the one vertical wall hung a watercolour of a country house and an oil painting of a prize cow.

  ‘Twenty-one, Abbey Gardens.’ Breen took an A–Z out of his coat pocket and pointed at the page. ‘We believe drugs were being dealt from that address.’

  Tarpey looked briefly at the map, then straight at Breen, and said, ‘And your question is?’

  ‘Do you know anything about drugs being dealt from that house?’

  Tarpey paused, screwed up his eyes. ‘Why are you asking me that?’

  Breen looked a
t his face, hoping for a sign of nerves. But there was nothing. Had he guessed wrongly? Or was he underestimating Tarpey?

  Breen tried again. ‘I asked whether you knew anything.’

  ‘Again, I admit, I am baffled by your question, Mr Breen. This sort of investigation is not exactly in the remit of your department, is it? You lot are in the business of death, not drugs.’ The smile again.

  ‘Twenty-one, Abbey Gardens,’ said Breen again.

  Tarpey looked from Breen to Jones, then leaned forward and picked up the phone. ‘I’ll need to speak to your superior officer.’

  Breen smiled. It would always be Tarpey’s reflex to hide behind authority, he guessed. Breen leaned forward and pressed down the stubs on the telephone’s cradle. ‘That’s not necessary,’ said Breen. ‘Or even advisable.’

  For the first time, it was Tarpey looking confused. ‘What do you think you’re doing?’

  ‘It was you that called off the investigation by the Drug Squad into people in that house dealing drugs, wasn’t it?’

  Tarpey’s smile was a little more fixed now. He pulled the cuff on his right-hand sleeve straight. ‘Of course not. I’m not even a civil servant. I wouldn’t have the power to do anything of the sort.’

  ‘I don’t believe that for a second,’ said Breen.

  ‘I’m certainly not going to discuss any of this with a junior officer. Please remove your hand or I will have you thrown out of here.’

  Behind Breen, Jones fidgeted. Nerves.

  Had he overplayed the few cards he had? Breen pressed on. ‘You used the Home Office’s authority to stop a police investigation.’

  Tarpey said nothing. He was looking beyond Breen, at the wall behind his head. A first sign of anger, perhaps?

  Breen said, ‘How did you find out that Francis Pugh was buying heroin from the squatters in Abbey Gardens?’

  ‘As I said, I am not going to discuss this with junior officers.’

  ‘I think you’ll find it in your best interest to tell me,’ said Breen. ‘Did Rhodri Pugh know that you prevented the Drug Squad from doing their job? Or was it him that ordered you to make them stop the investigation into drug dealing from the squat?’

  Tarpey stayed quiet. He was thinking.

  Breen went on. ‘Because if it was known that a minister had interfered with the business of the Metropolitan Police to protect his son, who was addicted to heroin, that would be quite a scandal.’

  ‘There’s no way of proving that.’

  ‘I don’t have to prove it. I just need to suggest it.’

  Tarpey put down the handset finally. He sucked his lower lip.

  ‘If you’re trying to threaten me, it won’t work.’

  Breen said, ‘With the government cracking down on drugs, Francis Pugh would be an embarrassment. It wouldn’t do if the son of a senior Home Office minister turned out to be a drug addict.’

  Tarpey looked sideways at the filing cabinet. He would be calculating the risk. The options.

  ‘The Drug Squad were going to raid Abbey Gardens. You found out about it. Or maybe Francis’s father did. You put a stop to it to protect Rhodri Pugh from scandal.’

  Breen could hear Jones shuffling uneasily behind him.

  ‘But that didn’t get rid of the problem, did it? I’m sure you tried to persuade Francis to stop taking heroin, but it’s not as easy as that, is it?’

  Tarpey was still looking away, his face unreadable.

  Breen continued, ‘What I’m not sure about is whether Francis was simply found dead from an overdose, and you persuaded someone to try and cover it up, or whether it’s something much worse than that.’

  ‘I sincerely hope you know what you’re doing,’ said Tarpey very quietly.

  ‘As you say, newspapers can get the wrong end of the stick,’ said Breen.

  Tarpey looked down at the paper on his desk and, finally, met Breen’s eyes. ‘Yes, you’re right. They can.’

  ‘Good,’ said Breen. ‘Now we’ve got that out of the way, we can talk?’

  Tarpey nodded. ‘We had better.’

  Breen turned in his chair. ‘It’s OK, Jones. You can go now.’

  Jones looked puzzled. ‘Go?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Breen. ‘Back to the station.’

  Jones hesitated for a second. ‘You sure?’

  Breen nodded, heard Jones clear his throat. Confused about what he’d been doing there. He scratched his head a couple of times and then said, ‘See you, Paddy. I mean, Sergeant.’

  ‘Very clever,’ said Tarpey, when he was gone. ‘Very well played, got to admit. Now. There is a point to this exercise, I presume?’

  Breen said, ‘I need you to do something for me.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ said Tarpey, standing, ‘we should continue this discussion elsewhere.’

  They left the building and walked through Parliament Square. Westminster was looking grey and tired. Gothic verticals disappearing into foggy sky. Only the odd red bus or black taxi sweeping through.

  They sat on a bench behind the black statue of the Burghers of Calais; men with rope around their necks. Side by side, Breen and Tarpey talked, not looking at each other, instead both gazing out over the pigeon shit-spattered wall to the river beyond, towards Lambeth. The tide was high. Tugs chugged upriver, pulling barges.

  A thin drizzle was falling but it wasn’t enough to disturb them. They negotiated. This was the way Tarpey did things. Breen had come to understand that. Small deals here and there. A whisper. A nudge. After around twenty minutes Tarpey stood and shook Breen’s hand.

  It was dark when he got home. There was an envelope on the doormat. A late Christmas card. With fingers stiff from the late December cold, he opened it. A mawkish picture of baby Jesus, laid on straw, a shiny halo above his head and a knowing smile on his face. The card was from John Nolan.‘Happy Christmas from John and all of the family.’ Breen put it on the kitchen table.

  In the evening he made leek and potato soup, and while it was cooking, phoned Tozer at the farm. Her mother said she was out.

  He imagined her in some cider bar in the local town.

  ‘One of the byres has a leaky roof. She’s fixing it up.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Breen.

  ‘Any message?’

  He told Tozer’s mother he would call again in the morning. ‘It’s very important I talk to her,’ he said.

  He was disappointed. He couldn’t help it, but he felt proud of himself. Something he had not felt in a long time. In years, maybe. He had wanted to tell Tozer what he’d done. What he was about to do.

  THIRTY-THREE

  Upstairs there was a New Year’s Eve party.

  Tozer called that evening.

  ‘I’m shagged out,’ she said. ‘And we’re short of hay already ’cause it was such a rubbish summer. I can play “Sunshine Superman” on the guitar though. Driving my dad mad.’

  ‘How is he?’ asked Breen. ‘Your father?’

  ‘The farm is worse than I thought. The cows are in a bad state. He kept them out in the pasture too long in the autumn and they suffered. Yield is way down. He doesn’t even talk much. What was it you wanted?’

  Then he told her about the meeting with Tarpey. Tarpey had told him how Rhodri Pugh had tried to get his son off heroin. He had paid for blood transfusions and other quack cures. None of them had worked. And then about how they had become increasingly worried he was going to be arrested, exposed in the papers as an addict. For the last year, Pugh’s department had been taking a new hard line on drug taking. Lock up the addicts. Cut off the demand.

  Then Tarpey had discovered that the Drug Squad were watching the squat, getting ready to raid it. Tarpey realised that if they were raided they would almost certainly start to shout about the cabinet minister’s son they had been suppling with drugs. It would not look good for the ministry. He went to Pugh; told him what was going on. Pleaded with him to act. For the good of the Party. Reluctantly, Pugh pulled strings. The investigation was dropped. Effectively from that
point onwards, the Paradise Hotel was now dealing drugs under police protection.

  ‘Bloody hell,’ said Tozer.

  ‘Don’t you swear in this house,’ said someone in the background. Tozer’s mum.

  ‘Then Tarpey says he got a phone call from Jayakrishna one night saying that Francis Pugh had overdosed on heroin. Jayakrishna knew that if it came out in the papers he’d lose everything. They only had protection as long as they were keeping Frankie Pugh’s addiction a secret. So he suggested they cover it up.’

  ‘So the stupid hippie buggers blew the whole lot up?’

  ‘Helen. I told you!’

  ‘And stripped his arms and legs of skin to hide the heroin tracks.’

  ‘And did their best to empty him of blood in an attempt to stop them being able to test the body for opiates.’

  ‘My God.’

  Breen told Tozer about the deal they’d made, sitting in the park overlooking the Thames. Breen said he would keep Tarpey’s secret as long he promised to make Jayakrishna set up a meeting between Tozer and Hibou. If Hibou wanted to go, Jayakrishna would have to let her.

  ‘Or I said I’d go to the papers. That way the whole deal would come down.’ Pugh would be exposed, not only as the father of a drug addict but as a minister who abused his power to protect his reputation. Jayakrishna would lose the house. ‘Tarpey rang me today. It’s all set up.’

  ‘Bloody, bloody hell.’

  ‘Helen. I’m not having that.’

  He could hear Tozer shouting, ‘Shut up, Mum. For once. This is bloody important!’ Then she spoke into the handset again. ‘But if you went to the papers, that would have been your career over.’

  ‘Possibly,’ said Breen.

  They talked a little longer until Tozer said she had to run. There was a problem with the milking machine.

  ‘Happy New Year, Paddy. You deserve one.’

  He sat without moving for a long time after the call. Upstairs somebody broke something. A glass or a bottle. She was right. He did deserve a good one.

  Dangerous to be so pleased with himself. His father had always taught him never to be sure of anything. At any moment the rug could be pulled from under you. But his father had been a bitter and disappointed man. Maybe he didn’t have to be one himself.