City of Dreadful Night Read online

  The divisional commander was waiting for me at the bottom of the stairs.

  ‘Terrible business,’ he said as I stripped off the overall.

  ‘Something of an understatement,’ I said, bunching the overall in my fists and tossing it in the corner. ‘Call Philip Macklin, will you? We need an immediate debrief – tell him to set up a post-incident room. I also need him to call the Police Complaints Authority and alert them, then choose a force from the MSF to investigate on the PCA’s behalf. Suggest Hampshire – I rate Bill Munro.’

  Bloody acronyms. MSF stood for Most Similar Family. All forces in the country were grouped into ‘families’ on the basis of social, demographic and economic factors rather than size, proximity or regional location. Our other MSF included Avon and Somerset, Bedfordshire, Essex, Kent and Thames Valley.

  ‘I’d like us all to get the hell out of here but the scene of crime team are going to need to be in this house for the next week or so. If we can’t disperse the crowd, they’re going to be doing their work under siege.’

  I used to brag that I worked best under pressure. Now my mind was in overdrive, considering possibilities, predicting outcomes. A part of me stood back and contemplated what a selfish shit I was, as some of my thinking was about how it was going to play in the press.

  I was determined to come through this unscathed. I had ambitions to go higher in the police service. I knew I could make a difference. I wasn’t going to let this bring me down.

  I left the divisional commander and went to the immediate response vehicle parked across the street. I had to be careful what I said to the officers inside because at the moment I didn’t know what had happened, didn’t know if they were culpable.

  Even so, I wanted to support them. I know from my army days what it’s like to walk into an apparently controlled situation that goes haywire.

  I rapped on the back doors of the van, pulled them open and hauled myself in. It reeked of stale sweat. It was crowded with officers hunkered down in black swat team T-shirts and trousers. Two groups of four men, talking in low rumbles at the far end of the van. That loudmouth Finch among them.

  By the door, two women. I recognized one as DC Franks. She was pale, tense and dry-eyed. She was being comforted by another woman, who was whispering in her ear. The other woman turned her head to look at me and my heart sank. DS Sarah Gilchrist was the last person I wanted to see there.

  I left Milldean at three in the morning. The situation on the street had been tense and there had been some stand-offs but no real problems had developed. When I climbed into bed beside Molly she didn’t stir. The smell of alcohol was heavy in the room, a bottle and a half-empty tumbler of whiskey by the bed.

  I was up again by six. The phone rang just as I was on my way out of the house. I hurried back in to answer before it woke Molly. William Simpson’s velvety voice was distinctive.

  ‘Bob, terrible business.’

  ‘I thought I should alert you to the situation—’

  ‘Quite right, quite right. Well, it’s a tragedy but something can be salvaged if we act quickly. The press conference at noon – announce your resignation then.’

  I was too surprised to speak for a moment.

  ‘My resignation?’

  ‘Your position is clearly untenable.’

  ‘William, it was an operation by one of my divisions. Responsibility—’

  ‘Is ultimately yours. It wasn’t a Kratos operation. You know that rules drawn up by the Association of Chief Police Officers says shots can only be fired to stop an imminent threat to life and, I quote: “Only when absolutely necessary after traditional methods have been tried and failed or are unlikely to succeed if tried.”’

  ‘I’m aware of that—’

  ‘The guidelines also say that officers are not above the criminal law.’

  ‘William, I could refer you to section thirty-seven of the 1967 Criminal Law Act, the bit that reads: “A person may use such force as is reasonable in the prevention of crime” – but what’s the point? I intend to stay to find out exactly what happened and make sure it can’t happen again.’

  Simpson sighed, almost theatrically.

  ‘Bob, the press are going to have a field day. Think about it.’

  I had been thinking about it, trying to figure out some way I could keep the government on my side.

  ‘I know you’re going to have a hell of a time spinning this,’ I said.

  ‘We don’t spin any more, Bob – didn’t you read the papers? In any case, the only spinning to be done here is out of control. The most outspoken proponent of routinely arming the police authorizes an operation involving armed police that turns into a bloodbath. Post-Menezes it’s an absolute catastrophe.’

  ‘You have excellent contacts in the press . . .’

  ‘Bob, of course, unofficially I’ll do what I can.’ Simpson could actually purr sometimes. ‘You know there was a brief period post 9/11 when gung-ho was good. But then 7/7 came along and the shooting of Menezes. And the lies . . .’

  ‘I know all that—’

  ‘You being opposed to a national force hasn’t helped.’

  ‘Jesus, William – the inefficiencies of any one force replicated at a national level.’

  He wasn’t purring now.

  ‘I’ve been charged with damage limitation on this. The government can’t be seen to appear foolish. I’m afraid your position is too exposed. It’s important that you act quickly to avoid us getting drawn into this mess.’

  Of course. This government, careering from disaster to disaster, was so terrified of accusations of sleaze or incompetence it readily abandoned those closest to it at the first hint of impropriety. And this was much more than that. I realized that Simpson, friend or no friend, had been ordered to cut me loose.

  ‘I’ll have to think about this, William. You’ve taken me by surprise.’

  ‘If that’s true, then you’re not as politically canny as I supposed you to be. Give it some thought but don’t take too long. If you don’t resign at lunchtime, the press will really go to work on you, I’m sorry to say.’

  At the time I thought Simpson was merely making an observation about the workings of the press. Only with hindsight did I see it was a threat.

  THREE

  The debrief was a joke. It was past midnight when it started and just before one when it ended, and in between Sarah Gilchrist heard nothing of value. She sat with Philippa Franks at the far end of the conference table, Harry Potter sitting upright on the other side of Franks, and watched in appalled fascination as Charlie Foster, the silver commander, struggled with a debriefing sheet he’d clearly never seen before. She could smell his fear, rank right down the table.

  Philip Macklin sat stiffly beside Foster, eyes fixed on his tightly clasped hands. Macklin had a dual role – gold commander and the main representative of Force Command. Sheena Hewitt, the Assistant Chief Constable in overall charge of operations, also represented Force Command.

  Gilchrist liked Hewitt. She didn’t take any shit from the men but she was also determinedly feminine. Hewitt was in her forties but still wore her hair long. Gilchrist wouldn’t have, but she recognized that Hewitt was pretty enough to carry it off.

  Hewitt was wearing casual trousers and a silk blouse – she’d been having dinner with her husband in The Ginger Man when she’d been summoned. She’d grimaced when she entered the room, walked to the window and opened it as wide as it would go. Foster wasn’t the only one who was giving off an odour.

  Hewitt looked round the table from one officer to the next.

  Nobody was saying much, which is why it was a joke and why Hewitt was irate. The unit had closed ranks. Nobody admitted to firing the first shot although several officers admitted to joining in after that. Their weapons had been tagged and ammunition counted. However, since no record was usually kept in the armoury of who took which weapon and how much ammunition was taken out, that wasn’t going to be very useful.

  Any kind of
auditing to do with the armoury had long been abandoned. There hadn’t even been an official armourer for the past two years. Savings.

  Gilchrist watched the big man with the missing teeth she’d encountered in the kitchen in Milldean. His name was Donald Connolly and he was based at Haywards Heath. The smirking man, who was sitting diagonally across the table from her, was Darren White, also at Haywards Heath. Finch was beside him, slumped in his seat, sick as a dog.

  Connolly, biceps bulging, was sitting to the left of her, his body angled towards Foster and Macklin. At one point, sensing her stare, he turned and looked back with hard eyes.

  She was the first to turn away. The man’s apparent hostility could be put down to the same prejudice against women officers that Finch shared. Or it could be something else.

  The fate of the object in the dead man’s hand in the kitchen was niggling at her. She hadn’t done a proper check under the cupboards but she hadn’t been able to see anything. She’d checked the evidence room before she’d come here. Nothing had been deposited in connection with the man killed in the kitchen. She was wondering if, against all procedures, any of the three policemen who’d joined her in the kitchen had taken whatever the object was.

  Macklin wasn’t saying much of anything. Gilchrist guessed why. He’d already pulled up the drawbridge. He’d authorized this operation. He’d made a judgement on information he’d apparently received from DC Edwards, who in turn had received it from his snitch. Macklin was responsible. And she guessed that therefore all he was thinking was how to save himself.

  As silver commander, Foster had run this woebegone operation. He too was in deep shit. Gilchrist thought him a good man, a moral man. She knew he would feel ultimately responsible. His sense of guilt was palpable. Five deaths were a heavy burden for any conscience to bear. Whilst he was clearly frustrated with everybody’s reluctance to speak, he didn’t seem to have the energy to take it further.

  It was left to the increasingly exasperated Hewitt to be the heavy. She brought her palms down heavily on the table.

  ‘Jesus, we’re on your side. Talk to us and maybe we can figure out what to do. When the Hampshire police arrive they’re not going to be anywhere near as gentle.’

  Her eyes swept the table. They stopped on Gilchrist.

  ‘Gilchrist?’

  ‘I was downstairs, ma’am. I heard the shots. We had checked the ground floor rooms and they were secure so my colleagues went upstairs to support the other unit.’

  ‘But all the rooms weren’t secure, were they?’ Hewitt looked at the notes in front of her. ‘This man appeared . . .’

  ‘It was a cupboard under the stairs. The door was concealed. Ma’am, I should mention that he had something in his hand.’

  ‘What?’

  Gilchrist flicked a look at Connolly, White and Finch. They were all staring at the table.

  ‘I thought it was a weapon at first but after I wasn’t sure.’

  ‘You didn’t examine it when he had been shot?’

  ‘It fell from his hand and – well – ma’am – I couldn’t immediately locate it without contaminating the crime scene.’

  ‘I’ll make a note for the scene of crime officers. Thank you, Detective Sergeant.’

  Hewitt turned to Foster.

  ‘We don’t know who any of these people are? Do we at least know if one of them is Bernard Grimes?’

  ‘Not yet, ma’am,’ Foster said.

  ‘Only two of them were carrying identification,’ Potter said. ‘We have their names and OPS1 is having them traced. But none are known to us, that’s correct, ma’am.’

  OPS1 was the designated title for whichever high-ranking officer was on shift in charge of the Operations Room. The Operations Room was the focal point of police operations each day and night.

  ‘Where’s DC Edwards?’ Macklin said. ‘He should be here. It was his informant who started this off.’

  Nobody answered. Macklin shuffled papers whilst Foster stumbled through the remaining questions on his sheet.

  The ‘hot debrief’ petered out ten minutes later.

  ‘All of you are off-duty as of now,’ Hewitt said, rising.

  ‘Suspended, ma’am?’ Foster said.

  ‘Pending an enquiry, it’s inappropriate for any of you to continue with your duties. But hold yourself available for questioning from tomorrow by the investigating officers from the Hampshire police force.’ She looked round the table. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, this is about as bad as it gets. It does you no credit to avoid saying what exactly happened in that house.’

  She looked at Macklin.

  ‘Philip, perhaps we could use your room for our meeting?’

  He nodded, his face grim. He’d rather be anywhere but here. Hewitt nodded at the room and followed Macklin out. Those who remained avoided each other’s eyes. As Connolly, the big man, rose, Sarah leant over. She could smell his aftershave. Sweet. Noxious.

  ‘Excuse me.’

  He ignored her. She reached out and gripped his bicep.

  ‘Excuse me.’

  He looked at her hand on his arm.

  ‘I’m spoken for but I’m sure you’ll find one of the other lads willing.’ He sniggered. ‘Try Finch – he isn’t too fussy, I hear.’

  They both looked over at Finch shambling out of the room with Darren White, the other Haywards Heath officer, stretching up to whisper in his ear.

  ‘Did you remove evidence from the kitchen?’

  ‘What evidence?’

  ‘Whatever it was he’d had in his hand. Judging from the footprints in the blood, it looked as if someone had been moving about in the kitchen.’

  He picked up her hand as if it were a dead thing and removed it from his arm.

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ he said, turning for the door.

  ‘He had something in his hand.’

  Connolly put his hand in his pocket and continued walking.

  ‘So have I. D’you want to hold it?’

  ‘I saw it,’ Sarah said.

  ‘Big, isn’t it?’

  ‘In the man’s hand.’

  ‘Well, I didn’t.’ He nodded at Finch’s retreating back. ‘And nor did Finch. Or White.’ He looked back at her. ‘So there’s only your word for it.’

  I’m not a pessimistic man, rather the reverse. My optimism used to anger my wife, Molly, especially when she herself was plumbing the depths. She would call me Pollyanna, her voice cold and jeering.

  ‘Only people with no imaginations are optimists,’ she snarled at me more than once.

  Getting through the days after the shooting at Milldean tested my optimism. These were probably the worst days of my life. Worse than when Molly and I later split up – I leave you to decide what that says about me.

  That night Phil, my driver, dropped off Jack Lawrence, my press officer, back in Brighton then drove me over the Downs to the little hamlet where Molly and I had settled four years before. I always liked the idea of leaving Brighton behind. Although my remit covered all Sussex, there was something about Brighton that seemed to stand for the venality and the criminality of the whole region.

  Leaving it, coming over into the pure country air of the Downs, allowed me to leave the job behind more effectively than anything. When I got home Molly was already asleep. I tiptoed up the stairs, put my head round our bedroom door and listened to her heavy breathing. I could smell the alcohol.

  I went back down the stairs, poured myself a brandy and went out on to the terrace. I could see the nimbus of the city’s light pollution across the top of the Downs. I imagined it getting brighter and brighter as Brighton’s pollutants threatened to spill over the South Downs into the countryside beyond.

  I wondered if there was any way I could save my job. I thought about phoning Simpson again. I wondered how bad tomorrow would be.

  The new area police headquarters were on the border between Brighton and Hove, down on the seafront. Given the traffic along the seafront, it was a ridic
ulous place for any kind of rapid response policing but I enjoyed the view from my window. I preferred bad weather days to good – watching the waves crashing over the groynes and spilling on to the promenade energized me.

  I love Brighton. OK, I know the city is officially Brighton and Hove since the councils merged but that’s just a sop to Hove civic pride. Although there are restaurants and bars springing up in Hove, Brighton is the engine that drives the city.

  I love Brighton for its energy and for its odd mix of people – a mix that, frankly, is a big policing headache. The students from Brighton and Sussex Universities clubbing until dawn, and the gays and lesbians who live in the city or come to visit in droves – all prey for any local gang, mugger or rapist. The unemployed kids on the estates around the city. The druggies, a danger to themselves and others. The crooks who come down from London at the weekends to have a lavish time on a strictly cash-only basis. The prostitutes. And, of course, the local crime families. There were two main ones – the Cuthberts and the Donaldsons – although a man called John Hathaway was rumoured to be the town’s crime kingpin.

  There was tension in the air when I strode through reception and the open-plan ground-floor office. I clocked covert and overt glances as I passed. At the rear of the building I jogged up the stairs to my office.

  Winston Hart, the chair of the Police Authority, had been phoning my mobile during my journey but I’d ignored his calls. He was a pompous prat of a local councillor from Lewes, one of many academics from the local universities involved in local politics. He’d left four messages with Rachael, my secretary.

  I eased behind my desk and looked across at the painting on the opposite wall. I’d bought it ten years ago when I could little afford the expense. I loved the mystery of it – a man and a woman sitting at a table, both gazing at a flower she was holding in her hand. A pot of the same flowers behind them on the window sill. The colours were bright – a yellow wall, red chairs, the man’s green coat, her black hair. But what was its story? That was the mystery.

  I sighed and called Hart. Our conversation was brief.