The Face (Harry Tyler Book 1) (7 page)

DS Shaw stared into the Ned Kelly in total disbelief. The floor was awash with white powder, pills and lumps of cannabis. It looked like an explosion in a pharmacy, he thought. There must have been three grand’s worth of illicit substances – whiz, Charlie, puff and Es – coating the carpet.

“Get everybody out,” he barked finally. “Get me a
photographer
. Get a lab scientist. Get me a new job …” Shaw couldn’t have been more gutted. This was a major incident scene. A policeman had been shot, no gun had been recovered, half of Bolivia’s national export was on the floor but only one of 48 prisoners had been found in possession of drugs, and that was a minor amount of Moroccan. Mission fucking accomplished.

Shaw edged out of the door. The rest of the revellers were being held outside. Shaw shouted to the uniformed officers in earshot who were still standing. “Get all their names and addresses, they’ve all got to be seen about the shooting.”

DO Hitchcock called over, “Shouldn’t we arrest them all as suspects for shooting the PCT?”

“Matter for you, sir,” Gary Shaw said. “Matter for you.”

Later that night, much later, Jane Shaw lay in bed with her husband and tried to calm him down. Gary had raged about Hitchcock for half an hour when he’d got in. He’d woken up the kids and drunk too much Scotch. It was, he assured her, “the biggest fucking cock-up in all my years in the force”.

“The fucking papers say Old Bill are institutionally racist,” he went on, “but believe me, darling, the only thing institutionalised in the Metropolitan Police is sheer fucking incompetence.”

Jane massaged his back and purred sympathetically. When she finally dropped off, Gary ran the night’s events through his head one more time. Years ago pub raids like that wouldn’t have fucked up because all that shit on the floor would have ended up in someone’s pockets. You wouldn’t dare fit up a suspect now, with an army of bleeding heart barristers on hand to kick up a stink. But how wrong was it to bend the rules a little if it meant putting away the bad guys? In Shaw’s early days as a Flying Squad detective it was common practice to tap telephones illicitly, invent surveillance records, plant evidence, and make up verbal confessions. Not because detectives were lazy or they wanted to frame the innocent. On the contrary, The Sweeney did it to nail criminals they knew to be guilty. They did deals with guilty villains, too, to put bigger fish away. They turned a blind eye to others in return for information. That was the system. It was imperfect, and open to abuse, but largely it worked. The bad guys got captured, even if it was for the wrong job. As Shaw always said, he’d never put an innocent man in prison – and most villains accepted it. They wiped their mouths and took what was coming to them. But not now. Now to hear the liberals tell it, it was the cops who were the bad guys. The world was turned upside down and Gary Shaw was fucked if he wanted to go into work on Monday morning.

Detective Sgt Michael French took another look over his shoulder before he walked into the Blackheath & Newbridge Working Men’s Club. It was 12 noon on Sunday, and no one was about. He signed in.

“Where’s yer snooker room, mate?” he asked.

“One flight up,” the man on the door with the hare lip replied.

French had only agreed to see the Bakers if the meet was “well off the plot … I mean,” he’d said, “right now you’ve got a hundred pairs of eyes watching the Ned round the clock.”

Johnny Too and Pyro Joey had made the journey out to SE3 separately. Joey drove himself out to the M25 and back into London on the A20. Johnny took a mini-cab to Waterloo, cut across to Waterloo East, jumped on a train down to New Cross and took a black taxi from there, watching his back the whole way. It would have taken Batman to keep up with him, but it was Fatman he was going to see. They were the only people playing snooker when French arrived.

“Michael,” Johnny Too smiled. “Delighted to see you. Drink?”

French nodded. Joey poured him a large malt. French grabbed the glass in his podgy fingers and downed it in one.

“I was gonna say meet at the Dome,” Johnny said, grinning. “We’d be the only fuckers there.”

The smile vanished abruptly from his face. He leaned close in to the detective. “Now,” he said sharply. “What the fuck was all that about?”

“Johnny, my life, it was as big a shock to me as it was to you.”

Pyro Joe scowled.

“Are you seriously telling me you didn’t even hear a whisper?” Johnny said.

“Not a dicky bird, John.” French felt perspiration form on his temples.

Johnny Too turned to his brother. “Perhaps we’re not paying him enough to keep his ears clean and keen.” He turned back to French, picking up a pool cue and smacking it against his open palm.

“How much wages have you had off the firm this year?”

“More than enough, John,” French said.

“And how much of my cocaine has gone up that big fat Filth bugle of yourn?”

“Johnny, I swear, there wasn’t a word about the raid up front,” French protested. “No one in the nick knew about it until the last minute.”

“And phones don’t work?”

“It was impossible for me to put a call in.”

Pyro Joe snapped the pool cue in two. “It just ain’t fucking good enough, Michael.”

“So what happens next?” growled Joey. “Are your mob gonna wanna know again?”

“No way,” French answered quickly. “I mean, the top brass are shitting themselves now. Word is someone senior is gonna have to take early retirement over this one and the smart money is on Hitchcock. Believe me, you ain’t gonna have no more ag in the immediate future. Oh, they’re watching ya, but no one is gonna move against you unless they can get you hands on, bang to rights and you, of course, are too smart.”

“Well said, Michael,” Johnny Too smiled. “Y’know, I can almost believe you. You’re like fucking Prozac in human form. Give him another sherbet, Joe. Let’s have a toast, to bent Old Bill. God love ’em, cos no other fucker does. C’mon, Michael, drink. Fill yer fucking helmet, son.”

Gordon Hitchcock felt nervous, like he was a schoolboy being sent to the headmaster. How was the Chief Super going to be? Monday morning “prayers” with the uniform Chief
Superintendent
was a three books down the back of the trousers job. He knew that everyone above and below him in rank wanted him to cop it big time over the raid that that Sunday’s
Observer
had dubbed “the policing fiasco of the decade”. This morning’s
Guardian
was calling for his suspension pending a full inquiry. Yet Chief Superintendent Neil Walker played it cool. The last thing he wanted was for Hitchcock to go sick and sue the force for causing him stress.

The meeting, involving six senior officers, began amicably. Hitchcock gave his version of events, details of prisoners, charges, cautions, complaints and an update on the shot officer (the last item on the list). The team of detectives called in to go door-to-door to seek witnesses had turned up just one positive lead, he said. Sadly, Mrs Savage at 46 Powder Mill Road was a certifiable nutter who believed
The X-Files
was a documentary. This surprised no one. But Hitchcock did get a laugh when he announced that her tip, that Elvis was still alive and living his life disguised as the Ugandan woman next door, had been passed on to Special Branch for closer investigation.

Every party-goer had been seen, but sadly there was no trace of Mr Liam Gallagher, Miss Sheila Blige, Mr R Poon, or a dozen of the other volunteered names. Naturally, the genuine revellers had all been in the toilets when the raid occurred (but not taking drugs, of course).

When the dead wood vacated the room, the real meeting began.

“Well, Gordon,” Neil Walker said. “Where do we go from here? Other than being dragged through the civil courts, that is.”

Walker came from Birmingham and had a voice like a Brummie Eeyore. He spoke slowly. Every elongated syllable seemed heavy with resignation. Hitchcock shifted uneasily in his seat.

“I just don’t know, sir,” he said. “DS Shaw has suggested we might look at a U/C operation.”

“U/ C …” Walker pondered aloud.

“Yes, Sir. An infiltration by an undercover officer to try and get some sort of damning evidence against the Bakers and hopefully identify who shot young PC Jackson.”

“Did DS Shaw have any other ideas?”

“The only other thing he came up with was Brazilian death squads.”

“Let’s stick to the sensible options.”

“Right, sir. Death squads it is then.”

Both men laughed.

“This undercover option, what are your views, Gordon?” Walker asked. “Won’t the Bakers be expecting something?”

“On the contrary, sir. I suspect they’ll be looking to the usual breath tests and car stops, but one thing’s for certain – they think they’re untouchable now”

Walker stood up. “Feasibility study, Gordon. Get me a feasibility study.”

“I’m on it now, sir.”

The local press had a field day, of course. “The Riot Of Rotherhithe” they’d called it, with the sub-head: “Wrong Arm Of The Law”. They couldn’t match the
Socialist Worker
’s “Police Riot!” splash for partisan reporting, but their pages were awash with quotes from salt of the earth Rotherhithe folk. Gary Shaw marvelled at the selective nature of their observational prowess.

“Fucking amazing,” he said to Jane. “No one ever witnesses any crime on this patch, not once, but when a police raid goes pear-shaped, the world and his sister all see a copper putting the boot in, and three drug dealers giving one policeman a good hiding in self-defence … Everyone – reporters, politicians, social workers, vicars – is on the side of the scumbags. It’s like the world’s turned upside down.”

Jane kissed him on the nose. “Were you serious when you talked about taking early retirement the other night?” she asked. Gary Shaw said nothing.

It would be no great slur on the reputation of solicitors Bondman, Gable & Goode to say that Maurice Bondman was as bent as they come. He didn’t see himself like that, of course. To hear Maurice talk at dinner parties, he was some kind of Equalizer, a low-rent Michael Mansfield, taking up arms for the poor and the oppressed. Right now his biggest client was sipping tea in his Old Kent Road office and reeling off an appalling litany of police oppression.

“I mean,” Johnny Too was saying, “in my game I expect ag from the Old Bill, but they have gone right over the top this time, Morrie mate. This ain’t yer normal New Labour militia having a pop at the struggling entrepreneur, this lot have really tried to mug me off. They’ve assaulted me, abused my civil rights, damaged me property, scattered half a ton of drugs from the police store all over me carpet. Even my MP is up in arms.”

“Yes,” Bondman nodded, running his fingers through what was left of his hair. “It’s a terrible business. Tell me, Johnny, how many of your black clientele did they unlawfully stop outside the public house?”

“Oh, they really had it in for the black ones.” Johnny winked. “Why, one of the lads, poor old Rhino, was called a black cunt and everything. Bastard cop sprayed CS gas right in his boat.”

“Terrible business,” Bondman said. “This is a very serious matter, I’d be surprised if heads don’t roll. And clearly a considerable sum of compensation is in order.” Maurice allowed himself a smile.

Johnny Too chucked his solicitor a wrap of cocaine and laughed. “I think the expression is trebles all round, my son.”

DS Shaw and DCI Hitchcock arrived forty minutes early for the 11 am meeting in the conference room at New Scotland Yard, so they decided to grab a latte in one of the new, fashionable, little coffee houses in the Broadway underground station. It was just under four weeks since the disastrous raid on the Ned Kelly. Hitchcock opened a pack of brown sugar, poured it and began to stir his drink.

“I’ll outline the project, Gary,” he said. “You just come in at the appropriate time to fill in any gaps and answer questions.”

“Sir.”

Over the last month, Shaw had seen a stronger side to Hitchcock. He grudgingly admired the way the senior officer had batted off the local Labour MP and had managed to keep the positive aspects of policing Rotherhithe in the public eye. Hitchcock had also parried questions as to why the police hadn’t tried to revoke the Ned Kelly’s licence through the local magistrates court. “Better,” he’d said, “to know exactly where Rommel and his Panzers are.” Besides, he’d reasoned, pushing the Bakers over the border into another patch wouldn’t have dealt with the problem, but merely edged it into darker shadows. Ah, the power of self-preservation.

The two men drank up and crossed the road to New Scotland Yard. Shaw pointed at the famous rotating sign on the pavement. “Did you ever see that sketch,” he said. “I think it was on
Monty Python
. They had a pipe from that sign going underground and, then up into the Commissioner’s office where he was sitting at his desk pedalling away to keep it moving.”

“That was coffee you were drinking, was it?” Gary Shaw shrugged. He never felt quite at ease in the Big House. To him, it was the place senior officers went to hide from real police work … the place where Inspectors who had screwed up on Division got promoted to become Chief Inspector of A3 paper, paper clips and staples, if only to hide the embarrassment. So why the fuck wasn’t Hitchcock the Assistant Commissioner?

Once, he reflected, this building had been staffed with real coppers, real hard men. Now it was a job for academics educated to the point of stupidity. Gary Shaw detested the new Politically Correct officer caste. They couldn’t catch a thief to save their arses, but somehow they emerged as the leaders of men. Well, men, women, homosexuals, bi-sexuals, tri-sexuals, transsexuals, transvestites, and every muddy shade of ethnic minority going. PC was a cancer which as far as Gary Shaw could see was eating the Force away from its insides. It had already taken the heart and was about to engulf the soul. Years ago there had been a bar called The Tank in this building. Now it was a fucking gym! Things can only get better all right. No more could
hardworking
officers discuss serious crime issues in their own time over a pint in the most private of private clubs. Far better, apparently, that they wandered 300 yards up the Broadway and confer in public bars …