Brixton, LondonThe door to the pub slammed shut behind Ray Newman. He was dripping wet, covered in rain, and on his face was a scowl. The pub’s landlord rubbed at a pint glass with a rag, as if unaware of Newman’s presence, until his heavy, wet footsteps drew the landlord’s gaze towards him. It had only taken Newman five minutes to find out which pub Clarke had been murdered in and another two to find out that the landlord, a man by the name of Jonathan “Jim” Thompson, had been present during it. Thompson was in his fifties, with sunken cheeks and a sickly disposition, and there was a defeated look to his eye as he gestured Newman towards the exit.
“We’re closed, mate.”
“You’re closed when I say you’re closed,” Ray said cooly as he reached into his pocket and plucked his badge from it. “Newman, Metropolitan Police.”
Newman continued towards Thompson with a look that brooked no argument and perched against the bar opposite the landlord.
“Oh, for god’s sake. What do you people want? I already spoke to your man, the one with the beard, Detective Winters? I have absolutely nothing more to say about what happened.”
Newman’s scowl deepened and he reached across the bar and grabbed Thompson by the collar of his Oxford shirt. He slammed the landlord’s head against the bar beneath one of its many pumps and reached for one of the handles. As his hand tightened around it, he pictured Oldfield bleeding out on that pavement and let his rage run through him. He couldn’t bring James back, nor could he find whoever had killed him, but he could help Keenan and Simone. Even if that meant getting his hands a little dirty in the process.
“Is that so?”
Newman yanked down on the pump and a murky, brown ale came flowing out and washed over Thompson’s face. The landlord tried to struggle out from beneath Ray’s fat, hairy hands but was no match for the policeman’s strength. Thompson gargled away in vain, trying to catch his breath where he could, until Newman let the pump loose some and Thomson coughed and spluttered for breath. He looked up at the policeman, his eyes widened with shock, and attempted to tug out from beneath him once again.
“What the hell are you doing? You can’t do this.”
A sadistic smile appeared on Ray’s face.
“What are you going to do about it?”
Ray pinned the man down again and tugged on the pump with even more authority than he’d done the first time. The brown liquid covered Thompson’s face and this time his lame attempts to breathe seemed tinged with real danger and threat. His clawing at Newman grew more and more desperate but Ray ignored the scratches, despite their drawing blood, and forced the landlord to endure more of the ordeal. He would make him speak where Winters had failed to. Now Newman proved that he was being serious, he’d give Thompson the opportunity to earn his next breath. He let the pump go and pulled Thompson out from beneath it.
“A man was murdered in your pub and you swear blind that you saw nothing,” Newman said as the landlord gasped for air pathetically. “Forgive me if I don’t believe the tale you spun to my colleague but I find that a little hard to believe.”
Thompson shook his head earnestly.
“I told your man everything, I swear.”
Newman slapped the gaunt, sickly landlord with the back of his hand and flecks of ale went flying across the floor of the pub. Thompson’s white cheek was a blushed red from the blow as Newman prodded one of his fat fingers into his face.
“I’m not fond of the coloureds, not one bit, but coloured or not the fuck that did that old man in is still walking the streets. Next time it could be someone I know and love. I’m not going to let that happen, John. In fact, I’m willing to do whatever it takes to make sure that it doesn’t hap-”
The policeman stopped midsentence as he noticed something in the mirrored surface that lined the shelves behind Thompson. It was a figure. Tall, slender, with a youthful face that Newman would recognise anywhere. A puzzled look appeared on Thompson’s face as Ray eyed the figure, the colour draining from Ray’s face as his brain began to process what he was seeing. It was Oldfield. It wasn’t Oldfield, Ray knew that much, it couldn’t have been him. He’d held him as he’d bled out in the middle of the street. He’d been there when they’d lowered him into the ground. Ray felt the hand that had been clamped around Thompson’s neck begin to shake and the landlord slipped out from it and went crashing to the ground.
Newman mumbled, almost incomprehensibly, as he tried to make sense of what he was seeing.
“James?”
Between blinks, the figure disappeared and Newman’s shaking, damp hands stilled some. He shook his head, attempting to consign the vision to the back of his mind, as Thompson scuttled on his hands and knees away from the policeman. Once Newman had finally regained his senses, he stared down at Jim Thompson, soaked through in ale, cheeks reddened from where Ray had struck him, and a deep sense of guilt began to flow through Newman.
“You’re insane, man.”
Newman could offer no rebuttal. He glimpsed back up at the surface, hoping to see the visage again, but found only his reflection staring back at him.
“It’s nothing, I thought… I thought I saw… someone that I…”
Gazing into his own eyes he realized the folly in what he’d done. He’d volunteered to help Keenan and Simone out of some sense of impotence regarding Oldfield’s murder, hoping to atone for not being able to save him, for not seeing it coming, and hoping, as Alice Oldfield had suggested to him, to better himself to some degree. He’d hoped to be more like Oldfield, not less like him, and only now did he realise that James would never have sullied himself by torturing information out of someone, least of all someone that had done nothing wrong except having been scared. Jim Thompson might know more than he was letting on but he wasn’t keeping quiet to hurt anyone. It was because he feared violence reprisal. And all Newman had done was proved him right.
“I’m sorry.”
Ray muttered as he staggered his way towards the exit. As he reached it and felt the cold wind gushing against him, he heard Thompson’s feeble, strained voice mutter a damning phrase. It carried along the bitter, Brixton wind as the door slammed shut behind Newman.
“Fucking nutcase.”
*****
Cape Town, South AfricaWoolgar Donovan stared down at the gathered bodies of the murdered British ex-pats he and Corporal Nick Marsh had stumbled upon. They were a ghastly sight and even worse on the nose. No doubt the story would have broken back home by now but Donovan didn’t have time to think about that. He ran a dirt-covered hand through his sandy blonde hair and let a smoker’s cough crawl its way up through his blackened lungs as he peered at the bodies. Marsh stood by his side, eyeing them forensically, as the makeshift coroner examined them. The coroner was a fat man, hair tied back into a messy blonde ponytail, and he spoke with an accent posher than any Donovan had ever heard before. It seemed ill-suited to the man, who seemed incompetent to the point of criminal negligence, but rumour had it the coroner came from good stock. The disappointing third son of some distant cousin of a distant cousin of a baronet. It was far from Donovan’s humble beginnings.
“What can you tell me?”
The coroner looked up to Woolgar with a vapid smile.
“There’s no need to over-think this one, Donovan. This is the work of natives. It’s as open and shut as they come. All we need to do is find the black bastards responsible and make them pay for it. If you ask me, we ought to string them up and do them the way they did these poor sods. Flay them alive and send a message to the rest of them that they will be broken, one way or a-bloody-nother.”
Donovan’s teeth had gritted as the fat coroner spoke. He was certain the man had seen action on the front line and doubted he ever would. Yet here he was extolling the virtues of an act of barbarity he himself would never have the stomach to see through. It was commonplace in the Armed Forces, sadly, and more often than not it was working class men like Donovan that were made to do it. He had no words for him on that, at least no sensible ones, and instead kept to the matter at hand.
“You’re sure about that?”
Another empty, smug smile flashed in Donovan’s direction.
“As sure as the day is long, old chap.”
Marsh, who had up to that point been silent, cleared his throat to catch the coroner’s attention and gestured towards the door in the corner of the room.
“Could we have the room?”
The coroner nodded and began to pluck his gloves free from his hands.
“Of course, I’m going to trust the pair of you to refrain from interfering with the cadavers whilst I’m out of the room.”
Marsh watched as the fat man waddled towards the door and waited until it had shut behind him before breaking into action. He reached for the lock on the door and turned it. Donovan watched on, bemused, as Marsh gazed down at the bodies, his eyes mere inches away from them, studying them closer than the coroner had. After a minute had passed, he cleared his throat and looked up to Donovan with a uncertain look.
“Permission to speak frankly, LT?”
Donovan smiled.
“It smells like shit in here, Nick, I think we can dispense with the formalities.”
Marsh let free a relieved sigh.
“It’s bullshit.”
Woolgar’s wrinkled, scarred face remained unchanged as the words slipped out. Marsh looked as if he’d expected his commanding officer to be taken aback but Donovan had seen more than his fair share of impossible things in South Africa. There wasn’t much left that could shock him. Instead, he rubbed at the stubble that resided on his chin and nodded blankly to Marsh.
“Explain.”
Marsh moved towards the bodies. With great care, he hovered his hands over portions of their bodies that he wanted to draw Donovan’s attention to, making certain not to make contact with them. He had a theory, though he daren’t speak life into it, and the last thing he needed to be accused of tampering with the bodies. If Marsh’s theory were true, there would be huge ramifications for everyone involved, and the evidence would need to stack up. First though, he’d have to convince Donovan, which was by no means an easy task given that the Lieutenant was disposed towards disbelieving in all things at even the best of times. Little did he know, Donovan had already begun to have suspicions of his own. Though they weren’t as thought out as the Corporal’s doubts.
“The natives use machetes. Whoever flayed these men used something else, something sharper than the rusty tat the coloureds get their hands on. Plus the marks on their hands and feet… It’s not consistent with rope, boss. It’s something else. Plastic handcuffs or something like that.”
For the first time, Donovan seemed impressed.
“How do you know all of this, Marsh?”
Marsh’s cheeks turned red with embarrassment.
“I… before the war started I wanted to be a policeman but… I thought… I wanted to do my bit.”
Donovan nodded as he moved forwards to inspect the ex-pats wrists himself to verify Marsh’s observation. To Donovan’s untrained eye, the marks around their wrists might as well have been from rope, but Marsh seemed to know what he was talking about. There weren’t many men left in South Africa, or Donovan’s platoon for that matter, of which that was true.
“If we make it out of this place in one piece, promise me you’ll do that, Marsh. You’re wasted out here. We’re all wasted out here.”
Marsh and Donovan stood in silence, staring down at the bodies – their sliced clean from them, and both men pondered their next move, with each arriving at a different conclusion. Marsh spoke first, his eagerness for justice clear from his facial expressions, but given his rank he was compelled to defer to Donovan.
“What are we going to do?”
Woolgar clicked his tongue with exasperation.
“What are we meant to do? We’re not policemen, Marsh, we’re soldiers. We follow orders.”
Marsh’s disappointment was tangible.
“But… if the natives didn’t kill them, who did?”
Donovan looked to his corporal and placed a rough, calloused hand on his shoulder pad, with a heavy sigh. It wasn’t chiding by any means, nor mocking, but concerned, almost paternal.
“Ask yourself this, kid. If whoever did these poor bastards in were willing to do a thing like this, what do you think they’d do to the guy that started asking questions about it?”
The lieutenant watched as Marsh’s mind worked, playing through all the possible scenarios that could arise from him chasing what had happened here, and finding each ended as badly as the last. He wanted more than anything to find who had done this and bring them to justice, it was what he had joined the army to do ¬– to stop barbarism like this, but he had a feeling if he pursued it any further he’d as quickly end up next to them. Donovan was right, as much as he hated to admit it, and as much as Donovan himself hated the sordid, unending moral compromises war forced him into. He walked towards the door, unlocked it, pushed it open, and pointed Nick, whose vacant gaze betrayed his begrudging understanding of the situation, to step through it.
“Let’s go, Marsh.”
*****
Whitehall, LondonIt had been a difficult morning for Samuel Hobbs. Most of his mornings had been difficult of late. This one was particularly uncomfortable. The bodies in South Africa were too big a story for the government to brush under the carpet, despite their efforts, and instead they had tried to take the bull by the horns. It had backfired in a sense. Now all anyone seemed to want to discuss were the murders in South Africa despite the government wanting to discuss anything but it. Luckily in the Downing Street briefing room, Samuel Hobbs was king. In his weekly meeting with Britain’s leading political editors, Hobbs controlled what was said and what wasn’t said, and it was him that okayed, if indirectly, what would hit Britain’s front pages the next morning. They might not be capable of stopping the British people from talking about it but they could certainly make sure it didn’t see the front page of a newspaper tomorrow morning. Instead, they would talk up the Voluntary Repatriation Bill until that became the national preoccupation. At least that was the plan.
“Before we begin I just want to say that I won’t be answering any questions about South Africa or what happened in Cape Town so I wouldn’t even waste my breath if I were you.”
Charlie Whitebread from the Guardian piped up, his fat, red face sticking out amidst the crowd of assembled editors, with a question that proved to completely wrong-foot the un-wrong-footable Hobbs.
“What about Hewitt?”
The rail thin, ghostly pale Hobbs did a double take.
“I beg your pardon?”
Whitebread smiled, sensing he’d caught Hobbs off guard somewhat, and pressed the issue.
“What about Dominic Hewitt? Rumour has it he was let go last week.”
Were Hobbs a normal man, his face might have reddened with anger but instead the only indication of his anger was a slight narrowing of the eyes. It passed and Hobbs let a sickly sweet smile flash across his face as he tried to disguise his being caught unprepared.
“Yeah, well, I wouldn’t trust whatever source you’re hearing these rumours from if I were you. Hewitt left for personal reasons, some dead fucking granny or an aunt with a cancerous growth the size of Malta on her tit, something soppy like that. He was not, I repeat not, “let go” by Downing Street so any prick that prints anything remotely resembling that will have me to deal with.”
Whitebread smiled.
“I think the lady protests too much.”
The Downing Street press man’s smile disappeared and he glowered in the Guardian editor’s direction. Despite his small, skinny frame there was a real menace to Hobbs. It wasn’t a violent one, much the opposite in fact, but the menace one might feel upon seeing the grim reaper darken one’s door. Hobbs was a force of nature, he could ruin careers with a single phone call, and Whitebread’s barb had inched over the invisible line between fraternal jockeying and overfamiliarity.
“My fist will be protesting its way all the way up your fat arse if you don’t shut the fuck up, Charlie. And if you insist on quoting the bard the least you could fucking do is get it right.”
A cowed silence fell on the group as Whitebread shuffled uncomfortably in his seat. Beside him Fred Lambert from the New Jerusalem cleared his throat uncomfortably and Hobbs shot him a disapproving look. Mid throat-clear Lambert stopped, compelled into a silence of limbs by the look, and stared elsewhere as to avoid Sam’s gaze. Finally convinced he had exerted his authority over the group again, Hobbs let out a playful smile and flipped open the folder resting in front of him.
“Enough flirting,” Hobbs muttered as he reached for his pen. “Can we get down to business?”
Opposite the table the editors opened their own booklets, reached for their pens, and prepared to make notes of Hobbs’ dictation. Never had a Director of Communications spoke so clearly with his master’s voice but as far as the press lobby was concerned Hobbs was the closest thing Downing Street had to a prophet. His word was as good as the Prime Minister’s itself on policy issues.
“The Voluntary Repatriation Bill is to go before the House of Commons this afternoon. Yours truly has spent many hours making sure this thing reads like a fucking charm so I expect you fat bastards to be waxing positively lyrical about it tomorrow morning. This is the Prime Minister’s magnum opus, ladies and gentlemen, which means this is my magnum opus. Anything less than five star reviews and we’ll send the heavies round with the broom handles.”
The tension in the room cleared as the editors let out a bawdy laugh at the Director of Communication’s flowery imagery all but for one. Fred Lambert sat uncomfortably silent and still amidst the laughing editors, a guilty look on his face, finding himself incapable of laughing.
*****
Brixton, LondonIt was late afternoon and Ray Newman ambled his way up the stairs of the Angell Town estate towards 12D, the apartment Keenan Gayle had specified during their chance meeting. He stopped outside of it, plunging his chubby hands into the pockets of his Harrington jacket with a heavy sigh as he considered knocking on the door to the apartment. One of his hands slid from his pocket, floating above the air in front of Keenan’s door with purpose, until all the will seemed to drain from Newman and he let his hand flop back to his side. His mind was still plagued with thoughts of last night. What he’d done and, more importantly, what he’d seen was playing on his mind. He had never been a superstitious man. At least, before last night he’d never been a superstitious man, but now he wasn’t sure what to think. All he knew was that he’d left Thompson’s pub feeling more sullied than when he’d entered it. He needed to unburden himself if he were to combat that feeling.
Finally Ray knocked and Keenan Gayle appeared at the door.
“Ray,” Keenan said with a smile. “What are you doing here? I wasn’t expecting you so soon.”
Newman gestured inside of the apartment.
“I need to talk to you, Keenan.”
“Sure, come on in.”
Gayle led Newman through the tiny flat, around the boxes of possessions containing Keenan and Simone’s possessions, to where they were staying in what once had been the dining room. Keenan’s friend had given him and Simone a roof over their heads but it wasn’t much more than that. In fairness, not many of the houses on the Angell Town estate had much more than that. Newman leant against a stack of boxes. As he did so, there came a squeak from beneath one of his feet and he noticed a toy beneath his foot. He grimaced awkwardly and stared around the apartment.
“Is… Is Simone here?”
Keenan shook his head.
“No, no, she’s still at school. I should be at work but… well, there wasn’t any this morning.”
Ray nodded vacantly as he stared at Keenan, weighing up whether to give voice to his actions last night. He barely knew Keenan, Simone even less so, and he’d not declared to either of them that he was determined to bring Errol Clarke’s murderer to justice. For all Ray knew, Keenan might take Newman’s vow badly and things could get ugly between them. Ray wouldn’t blame him if he did. Eventually, after staring silently over Keenan’s shoulder for several seconds, Ray swallowed his pride and spoke.
“I went to the pub where Errol was murdered, Keenan.”
Gayle frowned.
“What?”
“I wasn’t completely honest with you last time we met. My name is Ray Newman but… I’m a policeman, or at least I was a policeman, I’m on a bit of a break at the moment. The policeman that was murdered? He was my best friend, I guess. They’ve made me take some time off but… I’m not really coping as well as I thought I would. So I decided I’d try to make myself useful.”
It was a lot to take in all at once but, in credit to Keenan, he seemed to accept the information quicker than Newman had anticipated. Perhaps he had sensed police on Neman from a distance. The coloureds were able to just see police on certain people. Newman had been in the police for nearly two decades so it went without saying he’d picked up certain tics that gave away his occupation. Gayle must have picked up on them long before Ray confessed his real profession.
“By finding the people that killed Errol?”
Ray nodded.
“Something like that.”
The two unlikely friends stood in silence, neither making eye contact with one another as their minds moved in completely different directions, and each toiled away internally for the next sentence. Inspiration struck Newman before it struck Keenan. It was a pang of guilt that brought that inspiration on – guilt about what he’d done last night.
“I… I need to do this right,” Newman muttered. “I used to cut corners, Keenan, do things because they were easy, with no thought to whether they were right or wrong. My friend, his name was James, he did everything by the book. He was twice the policeman I am. I… I told myself I’d do this right but when I went down to the pub I just lost it.”
A concerned look flashed across Keenan’s face.
“You hurt him? The landlord?”
“Nothing too bad,” Ray said with a shake of the head. “But bad enough that if he was inclined to tell me anything before I paid him a visit, he won’t ever be again.”
Through Ray’s self-pity, Gayle had burst into life and began searching through the boxes for something. After each box, he let out a little sigh, and began searching through the next. As he reached the last one, he caught the end of Newman’s sentence and shrugged his shoulders dismissively at its premise.
“What makes you say that?”
Newman’s chubby cheeks turned red with embarrassment.
“I… I laid hands on the man, Keenan.”
Keenan popped one of the boxes open and a broad smile appeared on his face. He reached for a stack of photographs that rested above some of Keenan’s old records and began to sift through them.
“Errol used to say only those that were unwilling to ask for forgiveness were beyond forgiveness.”
An incredulous look appeared on Newman’s face.
“What are you saying? That I should go back there and tell the man I'm sorry?”
A little titter left Keenan’s lips as he found a picture amidst the stack of old photographs. It was Errol Clarke, in all of his glory, with his trademark hat atop his head. Something about him struck a bell with Newman but he couldn’t quite put his finger on what. Gayle smiled one last, solemn smile before turning to face Ray.
“Here’s a picture of Errol,” Keenan said as he outstretched his arm in Ray’s direction. “Maybe it will jog his memory a little.”
Newman reached out for it, staring down at the smiling, friendly coloured face of Errol Clarke, as his mind went to Jim Thompson, ale pouring over his mouth and nose as he plead for Ray to stop, and about how awkward it would be to go back there and ask for his forgiveness. Asking for someone’s forgiveness was never really something Ray had to perfect. If he was going to get any closer to solving Clarke’s murder, he was going to need to get good at it – and fast.
*****
Whitehall, LondonFraser Campbell fretted over the dozens of papers strewn over his kitchen table in a way he never usually fretted. Joyce Campbell watched on, her husband’s prickliness evident all day and night, before finally swallowing her pride and approaching her husband. She placed a hand on the small of Fraser’s back and smoke in a tone that managed to be both reassuring and needy at the same time.
“Do you want to talk?”
Campbell shrugged off his wife’s hand in favour of continuing to read the papers in front of him.
“I have to take the Bill before Parliament tomorrow afternoon. I don’t have time to talk, Joyce.”
One of Joyce Campbell’s blonde eyebrows shot up and her picturesque face suddenly became disbelieving.
"Since when? You
always have time to talk."
No response came from her husband. Though he was sometimes prone to bouts of self doubt or the occasional indecision, prickliness was never something that Joyce Campbell associated with her husband, which meant that something else had changed. As she tried to swallow her pride at having been ignored, it occurred to her that the elephant in the room loomed far larger than she could ever had imagined.
"This is about Tom."
For the first time, Campbell looked up from the stack of papers in front of him and shot his wife a defiant look.
"This is
not about Tom."
"Then why are you being distant?"
Campbell let out an exasperated sigh, flinging the pen between his fingers along the kitchen side and away from him, as if to illustrate the extent of his frustration with the line of his wife’s inquiry into his mod.
"Because tomorrow is a
very important day and I need to prepare. What don’t you understand about that?"
Fraser’s tone was particularly pointed at the end. It was a decidedly un-Fraser-like moment from Campbell. In all the years Joyce had known her husband he had never spoken to her in the way he had just done. Fraser was pointed, spiteful even, and though he would be aghast to learn it, had managed to unwittingly channel some of Tom. Joyce knew Fraser would
hate to know that and she had no intentions of telling him. She wandered away from her husband’s side, towards the refrigerator in the corner of the kitchen, when her husband’s hands unexpectedly wrapped around her own.
"I shouldn’t have spoken to you like that."
Joyced let out a defeated sigh.
"It’s fine."
"No, it’s not fine. We
both agreed to… to what you did and it’s unfair of me to hold it against you. It’s just… It’s the way he looks at me, Joyce. As if he has something over me, as if even after all of these years he’s better than I am, and I’m too stupid to realise what’s going on beneath my nose. It makes me so angry I can barely contain it."
Finally Fraser had spoken about it. His silenced had cut Joyce deeper than his words ever might have done. They had agreed to the other night, both of them seeing it as the only way to remove Tom from the picture, and yet all day and all night Fraser had treated his wife with contempt. It seemed one thing to discuss being cuckolded and another completely actually being cuckolded. Her husband seemed to be taking to it even worse than she anticipated. At least, he had done. There seemed a flicker of regret, an inkling of remose, to Fraser Campbell as his fingers ran along the length of his wife’s fingers.
Joyce nodded, knowingly, as wrapped her arms around Fraser.
"Soon there’ll be no more of Tom. They’ll ship him out somewhere, maybe to some far corner of Britain, or even out of the country should push come to shove – and then we’ll be free to make our move. There’ll be
no one left to stop us, Fraser. You think of that and all the good we’ll do once he’s gone next time. You hear me?"
Campbell nodded.
"I hear you."
Their embrace lingered on for several minutes until finally Joyce Campbell let he husband slip from her grasp. He wandered slowly back over to the kitchen table where his speech awaited him and Joyce followed after him. She perched on the seat next to his, lifting the first of the many pages up from the side, and scanning it as she let out a contented sigh.
"Now, let me read this speech of yours."
Supermaxx
Mao Mao
Simple Unicycle
Fetzen
