Fogarty: A City of London Thriller (2 page)

***

By the time a dozen policemen with riot shields arrived to drag away their colleagues, the
Astra was ablaze and plastic rubbish bins were spread across the road, preventing an assault of the street using a fixed offensive line of riot shields. As bricks and petrol bombs rained down, the police line withdrew and protected the ambulance, the crew of which was loading up their colleagues.

***

Chas Narida begged the other members of the TH crew for help with his injured brother, but they all wanted to stay with the action and do some ‘looting and burning, man’. Chas was only thirteen and small for his age. Tears streamed down his face as he helped his screaming brother into a quiet residential street and sat him against a wall. He ran up the path to the nearest front door and rang the bell. A man inside asked who it was.

“My brother has been hurt, badly. I need some help, man,” Chas pleaded.

“Go away!” the man answered gruffly. “I’m not opening the door. We’ve already had our bins stolen and our shed broken into. Call the police from your mobile and get off my property.” Even at thirteen, and with his limited schooling, Chas could recognise the fear in the man’s voice. Chas returned to the kerb, where his brother had slipped into shock. He had stopped screaming now. His breath was ragged, and he was moaning. Chas was scared. He reached into his brother’s pocket and took out his iPhone before dialling 999. The controller asked him to remain calm and informed him that someone would get to him as soon as they could, but that paramedics were being attacked in that area and that the roads had been blocked with burning vehicles by rioters. Chas already knew
about all of that, of course.

Almost three hours later, when an ambulance finally arrived, the older brother was catatonic and the younger boy was beyond hysterical. The Narida boys were driven off to the hospital, a cruel looking policeman guarding them in the back of the ambulance. Through their pain and despair they failed to notice that their soon-to-be-confiscated clothes were liberally splashed with their own blood
, as well as that of Police Constable Marisa Letterby.

***

The TH Crew were helping themselves to cheap electrical goods from a local retail shop and vodka from Bibby’s Wines on the opposite side of the street. They had been joined by a growing number of opportunist looters, many of whom had plummy accents, and some whose dialects were more closely associated with Kent and Surrey than North London. Almost every race and sector of society was represented, with teenage girls whooping as they smashed windows and stole useless trinkets.

Den, Mikey and their team had cautiously waited until the police had made it clear by their actions that they were just holding their lines and not taking the initiative, and then the gang struck. They forced the shutters on ‘Preston’s the Goldsmiths’, having removed the padlock with bolt cutters, and they poured in. Mikey stood guard at the door, discouraging other random looters from joining in the Tottenham gold rush.

Systematically, the gang smashed the display cases and ransacked the drawers, taking watches, jewellery and scrap gold as they went.

“Make sure you get the presentation boxes for the watches, Sammy,” Den ordered. “We’ll get twice as much for them if they look kosher.”

In less than ten minutes the shop was stripped bare, the stockroom was ransacked and only the safe remained untouched. One of the gang eyed the safe and tried the handle. It was locked, of course.

“Leave it, Barty, it’ll take us all night to get in there. We’ve got enough. Let’s go.”

***

Back at Trafalgar House, a bleak concrete deck access tower block on the Broadwater Farm Estate, two very different parties were taking place. On the ground floor at Metal Mickey’s gran’s flat, the Trafalgar House Crew, better known as the TH Crew, were sitting amongst looted TV sets, satellite receivers, DVD players and wireless routers, eating and drinking stolen convenience store inventory. A few drunken gang members were trying unsuccessfully to boot up stolen laptops, having forgotten to steal the mains leads in their frenzy of destruction. They could make all the noise they wanted. There was no chance of disturbing Mickey’s gran, as Mickey had put her in a taxi to Hemel Hempstead, to his uncle’s house, when the rioting had kicked off on Saturday.

Three floors above, a more professional party was underway. All six of Dennis Grierson’s inner circle had a beer at their arm and two of them were busily cataloguing the watches and jewellery they had stolen, being careful to place each item in its designer box. Mikey was weighing the scrap gold with a small set of scales.

“With gold at seventeen hundred dollars an ounce, we’ve got about forty thousand dollars’ worth of scrap gold,” he announced to the gathering of hard looking middle aged men. The gang had taken over control of Trafalgar House and its environs from a group of old timers in 1985, after the last riots, when they were still in their twenties. Dennis Grierson and his gang still ruled the estate by fear, even though Den was now in his mid fifties.

“Barty, you take this lot over the river tomorrow and see Lev Mickelson. Tell
him we want twenty five per cent and no less on the new stuff, then take twenty if you have to, OK?” Grierson looked at his old school friend and saw Barty nodding enthusiastically.

“I reckon we’ll net about fifteen grand each from tonight,” Grierson said, grinning. “Now let’s get rid of this stuff before the ‘looney tunes’ downstairs start flogging their booty on
eBay and bring the filth to our door.”

Hasperton, Day and Childs, Corporate
Law; Featherson St, Wellington, NZ. Monday; 11am.

Ben Fogarty looked out of his window on the seventh floor of the Hasperton, Day and Childs head office. Wellington was spread out below him, but the cloud and rain limited the visibility. The yellow weather band scrolling across the bottom of the LCD screen on his wall was recommending four layers of clothes and a weatherproof layer on top. It was less than three degrees outside and the frost was taking its time to melt.

Ben glanced at the news channel. It was midnight in the UK and it seemed, from the live feed, that London was burning. The telephone rang; the tone was similar to that used for the CTU phones in the US TV show “24”.

Ben grabbed the receiver and placed it to his ear.

“The court has found in favour of the Maori Council,” Hannah Bailey blurted out excitedly.

“I was never in any doubt,” Ben said with a confidence he had not felt. “Meet me at Brasserie Franco in an hour with the Elders and I’ll take an early lunch to celebrate.”

Ben set down the phone. It was great news, but bad news at the same time.
Ben had been set to make partner before he took on the Mouli Heights case, and winning the case was probably the worst possible move he could have made, career wise.

***

Ben had been brought up on a ranch way outside of Wellington, far away from any signs of civilisation. Dad was a rancher, but he was also a member of the House of Representatives when Ben was growing up and so, with no mother, Ben was brought up mostly by the Maori ranch hands and their wives.

Patrick Vernon Fogarty -
Dad - ran a very liberal house. All were equal under his roof; they all ate together, socialised together and worked together. There was never a hint of prejudice against the indigenous population in the Fogarty household. If anything, Patrick Fogarty was jealous of the Maoris’ skills, their knowledge of animal husbandry and their sensitivity to the landscape. More than once, over the years, the rich land owner had been saved from ruin by his workers telling him not to plant here, or to plant later, or to plant something else this year. Listening to his Maori friends had made him a fortune, and he could boast of never having suffered a failed harvest, a record his fellow farmers envied.

With this background it was inevitable that Ben would take the Mouli Heights case on behalf of the Maori Council. Mouli Heights wasn’t just a sacred burial ground or even just a place where flora and fauna flourished; it was where untold generations of Maori males had proven their manhood in trials against the elements, and where many made love to their wives on the first night of their marriage to have their consummation blessed by their ancestors. It was also just plain beautiful to Ben Fogarty.

Ben had fought the developers and the regional improvement board, who wanted to build a resort on the land because they thought that they could buy the land cheaply, whereas buying more suitable land from rich farmers would be very costly. The result was in; he had won, and lost at the same time.

***

The three managing partners sat at the head of the long walnut table, resting their portfolios on the highly polished surface. David Carrington opened the discussion.

“Ben, you knew when you took on this case that, as corporate lawyers, we would have difficulty explaining your position to our clients. Nonetheless, we wanted to keep you and so we took the flak and let you go on with the case. As we might have expected, you won.

Ben, you are the brightest and best we have. You would have been a partner next month, but I’m afraid things have changed. The management board have been approached by a number of clients who are unhappy that Hasperton, Day and Childs have succeeded against Derewold Developments.” Carrington paused as he looked at his notes and gathered his thoughts. This would be a very difficult decision to communicate.

“Ben, we would like you to take a year off. Call it a sabbatical, tour the world, no one minds what you do, but please don’t take on any more of these cases in your time away from the office.”

Ben Fogarty had anticipated a worse scenario, and so was more than a little relieved.

“I understand, David, Martin and Tom. I could use some time off. I love working here and you guys have always supported me, even in the Mouli Heights case, but for the good of the firm I’m asking for a year off, starting now.”

David Carrington looked at his two colleagues, who nodded their assent.

“OK, Ben. We will see you back here on the first of September 2012. In the meantime you have a partner’s bonus due for last year, and we will pay your base salary whilst you are off on your travels. On your return, you will work for a year before receiving your next bonus. Is that agreed?”

Ben agreed. His base salary in US dollars equivalent was around eighty thousand
, or fifty thousand pounds, but that was usually swamped by the bonuses, which were regularly one and a half times his salary. He could live for two years on the hundred thousand pounds he already had in the partners’ account, especially when his outstanding bonus was probably almost that much again.

The three older men queued up to shake his hand and wish him well. Tom Murchison hugged Ben tightly and spoke into his ear.

“Ben, I admire you. I wish I had your courage, I really do.”

“Tom, you showed a lot of courage when you took me on. I was a broken down rugby player with a poor law degree. You made me what I am today.” The two men broke the prolonged handshake and the three managing partners departed for their offices.

***

It was four in the afternoon
when Ben Fogarty signed in at Government House. A uniformed security guard, dressed in blue serge with coloured ribbons on his chest and gilt epaulettes, led Ben up the grand marble staircase to the first floor, where his father had an office. For the whole journey the guard, Dean, talked about Rugby Union and about the prospects for the All Blacks, as if Ben was still playing for them. Ben shared his views and smiled. It was good that people still remembered. It all seemed so long ago now.

Tessa, a wonderful middle-aged
woman whom Ben had known most of his life, showed him into his father’s office. Tessa appeared stern and austere on the surface, but she was actually more patient and kindly than any woman he had known. How else would she have put up with his father for almost twenty years? Tessa left the men alone and promised to bring in some tea and cake in due course.

The Member of Parliament for Masterton signalled for his son to sit as he stared at the TV screen suspended
on the wall above his bookcase. The LCD TV looked oddly out of place in this antiquarian room, which might otherwise have passed as a set for a Victorian melodrama.

When Patrick Fogarty turned to look at Ben there was a strange expression of concern on his face, more concern than was warranted by a riot eleven thousand miles away. Ben gave the older man a run down on the day’s events at Hasperton, Day and Childs
, and joined his father in silence at the end of his pronouncement.

“We both knew this would happen, son. As it turns out, it is opportune.” Patrick Fogarty paused and pointed up at the TV. “You see this, the riots going on in Tottenham?” Ben nodded. “I want to show you something that was on just before you came in.”

The MP rewound the live TV news programme until a woman announcer appeared on the screen. The broadcast was from TVNZ One, a rolling news channel. The woman spoke:

“The Metropolitan Police have issued these CCTV stills of the rioters and are particularly interested in this man, who is believed to have put a policewoman into a coma.”