Death Angels (25 page)

“We investigators have an easier time of it these days,” Macdonald said, putting his glass down.

“How so?”

“About a year and a half ago, they set up permanent teams, and I’m in charge of one of them. The way it used to be, if there was a murder in Clapham, they’d put together a team from around the city, but then some of London was suddenly undermanned. Investigators were sent back and forth to different stations to try to cover all the bases. It was a big mess.”

Winter heard voices clamoring at the bar.

“Now they’ve divided Greater London up into four quadrants, and I work the one called Four Area Southeast. It has a hundred and three inspectors assigned to eight different teams, each with three detective inspectors and nine assistants, not to mention civilian backup for index cards, computer runs and that kind of thing. I head up one of the teams, and we work together on every case that comes our way.”

“Then the trick is to have the right people.”

“I’ve made it my business to have the best. Inspectors from the south side, a couple from the Yard.”

“Murders only?”

“Yep. When you’re covering an area with upwards of three million people, that’s more than enough to keep you busy.”

“Makes sense.”

“There were seventeen murders in the southeast area last year and we solved every one of them. Probably because we were able to take our time. It was rougher going the year before—forty-two or forty-three murders, I have no idea why so many.”

“Did you solve all of them too?”

“All but one. We’re batting a thousand for the past twenty-one months, not counting the present case. The victim was notorious for breaking into houses in his neighborhood. Everyone who knew him, or had come home to find their bedrooms ransacked, was glad to see him dead.”

“No witnesses?”

“Nope.”

“And now you’ve got another case on your hands.”

“This one isn’t going to get away from us. We’ve dropped everything else. My detective superintendent also oversees another team, and he’s put them on the case too.”

“Twenty-six people altogether.”

“Twenty-seven if you count the detective superintendent, but I’m basically running the investigation.”

“Great, that should shake things up a little.”

“More than you might think. Just wait until the reporters show up tomorrow.”

“You’re an optimist.”

“What do you mean?”

“You said that you wouldn’t let this case get away from you.”

“We’re realists, but we also have faith in what we’re doing, right?”

“It’s a good combination.”

“I’d say it’s a necessary combination. And if you’re finished with that little snack of yours, I’ll drive you back to the station.”

HE HAD FOUND A ROOM AT THE NEW DOME HOTEL ON CAMBER
well. Church Street for twenty-five pounds a night, and the best part was that it was within walking distance of Brixton Station if you followed Coldharbour Lane. He had already made the trek, shoulder bag in tow, from the station to the hotel.

He knew that a bus ran down Coldharbour Lane but preferred to walk. The sun was out, and with Sugar Minott jamming on his headphones, he felt like he was experiencing life for the first time. Maybe he’d run across some good weed. He would take it easy if he did. He was here for the music.

As he approached the station, he saw a sign on the right: COOLTAN ARTS CENTRE. LIVE MUSIC FRIDAY NIGHTS. That was only a few more days. He would still be in London.

The scene around the station was mesmerizing—the narrow streets, the market wagons that came rolling through, not a white face in sight. Reggae blared from the stores. Some posters lying on the sidewalk displayed the names of various groups. He had found the right place.

He walked into Blacker Dread Music Store and saw everything he could imagine asking for. I’m in heaven, he thought, or at least reggae heaven. Or maybe I’m in Jamaica.

He browsed through the CDs. A number of the customers could have been Swedes or Danes or Germans, but he didn’t want to talk to anybody or even try to figure out what language they were speaking.

He found
Natty Dread Rise Again
by the Congos and their double album
Heart of the Congos
. And “Scalp Dem” by Super Cat. The box set
Acid Jazz Roots Selection
. Beenie Man, Lady Saw, Wayne Wonder, Tanya Stephens, Spragga Benz.

There was the new Bounty Killer—
My Xperience
. It would be three years before the album made it to Gothenburg, and then only by special order. He checked out the titles: “Fed Up
.
” “Living Dangerously
.
” “War Face (Ask Fi War)” remix
.
“The Lord Is My Light and Salvation
.
”

He saw
Guns Out
by Beenie Man Vs. Bounty Killer.

He was drawn to the lyrics, the swagger—especially the Bounty Killer titles: “Kill or Be Killed
,
” “Deadly Medley
,
” “Mobster
,
” “Nuh Have No Heart
,
” “Off the Air Bad Boy
.
” No compromise.

And here was Sugar Minott.
International
on RAS Records, produced by Hopeton “Scientist” Brown.

I could easily spend five hundred pounds here, he thought.

He leafed through the booklet that came with
History of Trojan Records, Vol. 2
. He would buy it.

Finally a pair of the store’s headphones was available and he handed his stack to the guy behind the counter, who had dreadlocks with blue ribbons dangling from the ends.

He began listening: Shaggy,
African Revolution
by Trinity, Chaka Demus & Pliers; and a classic by Culture that he hadn’t heard since some asshole borrowed it and never returned it—
The Dread Flimstone Sound,
an old Gregory Isaacs hit.

He listened to “Sodom and Gomorrow” by the Congos.

The best album was
Somma I (Hooked Light Rays)
, and he knew he wanted it as soon as he heard the vocals. Nothing but voices, like a black Gregorian chant, or African slaves down in the hold of a ship bound for America.

He decided to be choosy the first day so he could look forward to coming back. If he bought all the albums now, he’d be forever switching back and forth between them. Plus somebody could rob him on the street. He’d never be able to relax and concentrate on the music.

He bought
Somma I
and his hands trembled as he put it in his Discman. His earphones were back on before he’d even left the store. He walked down Atlantic Road toward the station and Brixton Market. The voices rose and fell, then snapped into a frenzy of sounds, as if a mad-man were loose among pots and pans. The music pierced his ears. It was alive, like someone in a long corridor with the instruments in front of him and the choir behind.

He stood outside the underground station. The viaduct on his right was green and burgundy. Red Records was directly across Brixton Road. Take it easy, he told himself. You can come back another day.

He saw a newspaper stand with black customers and black magazines:
Ebony
,
Pride
,
Essence
,
Blues & Soul
.

He was surrounded by unfamiliar smells. People came by with cuts of meat that he had never seen before, strange fruits and vegetables. Suddenly he was hungrier than he’d been his entire life. On Coldharbour Lane, there had been a place that looked outstanding. Auntie something. Auntie’s something Cuisine maybe. He went back and turned onto Electric Avenue. It was the best street name he’d ever heard of.

EARLY THE NEXT MORNlNG, WlNTER WALKED THROUGH THE
underground garage and up the narrow staircase to the investigation room. He passed two heavily armed men wearing bulletproof vests. The walls in the stairwell were colorless, as if the everyday world had receded behind him when he came in from Parchmore Road. He heard the drone of a fan and telephones ringing nonstop.

Stepping into the corridor, he saw women and men moving in and out of a maze of rooms. The chart covering the wall to the left of the stairs was more suggestive of a sci-fi space laboratory than a regional criminal investigation center. Spokes of a big wheel shot out in a thousand different directions, like a diagram of the solar system with the earth in the middle instead of the sun.

Macdonald had explained the chart the day before. Each line represented a call from the murder victim’s phone in the center. This was for a big drug case that led to the West Indies. The calls had been traced all across London, Britain and the entire Western Hemisphere.

The offices of the detective inspectors lined the corridor. The other investigators worked in two rooms, as well as the open space farthest from the stairs. Desks had been moved together to enlarge the work surfaces.

Everywhere Winter turned, he saw computers, typewriters, file cabinets, phones, stacks of paper, witness reports, handwritten notes that had been retyped. Photographs stuck out of the piles like awnings against the white and yellow paper. Old-fashioned efficiency. Computers aside, this was how Swedish police headquarters had looked back when he had started.

They have a more intuitive way of working, Winter thought. There’s a feeling here of anarchy and freedom and participation in decision making that we don’t have in Sweden. We don’t sit close enough to each other at our fortress on Skånegatan Street.

Macdonald’s office was no exception: a hundred square yards, stacks of papers, phones. Heavy protective gear was crammed behind the door, impossible to reach in an emergency. His service pistol lay in a worn-out leather holster on the desk. A very English sun filtered through the venetian blinds and drew stripes across his face. “Tea?” he offered by way of greeting.

“Please.”

Out in the corridor, Macdonald said something Winter didn’t catch to someone he couldn’t see. Macdonald came back, sat down and motioned to the visitor’s chair, which was wobbly but had held out for the few minutes Winter had sat there the day before.

“Tea’s on its way,” Macdonald said.

“We have to make it ourselves in Gothenburg.”

“England is still a class society. The weak make tea for the strong.”

“We’re on our way back to that time. The world-renowned Swedish model is out of date.”

“You don’t give the impression of being a working-class hero, exactly.”

A young woman dressed like a waitress in a white blouse and tight black skirt slipped in with a tray. On it were perched china teacups, a white pot, a sugar bowl and a carton of milk. Macdonald thanked her, pushed a pile of forms out of the way and asked her to put the tray on his desk. She did as he said, smiled at Winter and left the room.

“Do all Swedish inspectors dress like you?” Macdonald asked, raising a cup in Winter’s direction.

“Only when they’re on the road.”

“In England we come as we are, and that’s probably the best idea if you work this area. This station is perfectly located. As you see, we don’t go out of our way to make our presence known. We’re by ourselves here, out of sight, and we come back as fast as possible after a hard day. This is where all the computers are, where we do our thinking and chew things over with each other.”

“And answer the phones.”

With these words the phone on the desk began to ring. Macdonald lifted the receiver, mumbled for half a minute and hung up. “The Hilliers can see us tomorrow.”

“That’s good.”

“That remains to be seen.”

“Can you describe the area you work—the southeast quadrant of London? Is there a general tenor to the place?”

“No, except that the farther you get from London, the more pleasant it is. Less crime, more attractive buildings, nicer people. It’s not so bad in Croydon. There’s a big town center here that’s rolling in money, but the poor neighborhoods have quite a bit of trouble. It’s even worse to the north: Brixton, Peckham. Lots of crime, little or no money, a large ethnic population that has never been given a chance.”

“Hmm.”

“I’ve been a policeman for all these years down here on the south side,” Macdonald said. “If there’s one thing I know for sure, it’s that those who had a little chance before don’t have a hope in hell now.”

“And that means plenty of crime.”

“It means plenty of crime, and it means plenty of silence. The way it used to be, the rich were a trifle discreet. Now there’s nothing but open contempt. Those who have something to protect are arrogant and make it clear they don’t give a damn about anyone else. I see it every day.”

“But poverty isn’t the only problem, is it? Or the color of people’s skin?”

“How so?”

“It’s the pervasive sense of alienation. Of being ostracized in every conceivable way.”

“Right.”

“We’re starting to see signs of that in Sweden too.”

“You must be kidding.”

“No.”

“Sweden? God forbid.”

“Is it the cynical policeman in you that’s talking?”

“I don’t know.” Macdonald slurped a mouthful of tea.

“But it’s not only the fact of being a policeman that makes you cynical,” Winter said. “It’s this feeling that you’re all alone, that nobody else gives a shit. You discover that people lie so damn much, all the time. Not only the suspect, the criminal whose testimony doesn’t hold up against the evidence, but others too.”

“And the real culprits, whoever they are, go free. Those are the kinds of thoughts that can really make you cynical.”

“And all the other horrible stuff.”

“What?”

“So much exposure to violence. That makes you cynical too.”

“Yes.”

“The most important thing is the daily contact with people. That’s what keeps us going.”

“We do everything we can to sustain that,” Macdonald said. “If somebody has been murdered or has simply disappeared, we put up notices everywhere and we get thousands of calls from people who have seen something and want to help. As you can hear right this minute.” He gestured toward the corridor. Phones were ringing, softly but relentlessly, in room after room. “We had a case a few years ago. A boy, twelve years old at most, was brutally raped and murdered, and we were all stunned. What the hell were we dealing with here? What kind of evil was on the loose?”