Authors: Ken Bruen
‘The fuck is this?’ McDonald swung the pipe, crushing the guy’s lower jaw, and kicked him in the balls as his head
snapped back, McDonald knelt by him, grabbed his hair, twisted, said:
‘You ever appear in this street again, we’ll kill you and everyone belonging to you.’
He heard a groan behind him, Bill had taken a knife in the gut, the knife holder was standing now, professional stance, his mouth leaking blood, he glared at them, growled:
‘C’mon, you wankers, who’s next…?’
They’d had the initial advantage of surprise and had done really well but it all hung in the balance, a moment when all could go down the toilet, and he could sense his crew on the verge of flight.
He shot the knife holder, in both knees, said:
‘Troops disengage.’
He had to drag Bill along, blood seeping from his stomach, the docker grabbed his other arm and they were down the street, circled behind the houses and back thorough the gardens. McDonald could hear the wail of sirens. It struck him that for the first time in his career, that sound was the enemy. They were back inside the house, the librarian waiting, his face chalky white. McDonald ordered:
‘Hit the lights, we’ll stay in the kitchen.’
There were three bottles of Glenfiddich on the kitchen table, McDonald got Bill onto a chair, let his head rest on the table, and grabbed a bottle, tore the seal off it, drank deep, passed the bottle to the docker, and then examined Bill’s wound. It was nasty, and Bill had gone into shock. McDonald
grabbed another bottle, got the top off, and poured the whisky on the gash, Bill howled in anguish, McDonald commanded:
‘Get me something to bind this.’
He was handed a pile of bandages and some towels and sweat pouring off him, he managed to bind the wound. The docker said:
‘He’ll need hospitalization.’
McDonald nodded, said:
‘Give me five minutes to get clear, then call an ambulance, say he was a victim of a mugging. Get the gear stashed away. The rest of you go home, I’ll be in touch.’ They stood for a moment, staring at him, and he said:
‘You did good.’
He took another swig of the bottle and took off through the back garden. He dumped his balaclava in a bin, kept to the back streets moving fast and, on the edge of Clapham, hailed a cab, got in the back, and he was out of there. The driver, smoking a joint, had the radio on, loud. McDonald settled back in his seat, as Dire Straits sang.… ’The Sultans of Swing.’
A wide grin began to move across McDonald’s face. He watched the streets as the cab sped on, groups of people everywhere and he thought:
Man, my work has just begun
.
Foley, the desk sergeant, got the call about a shooting and mini-riot, and asked:
‘What else is new?’
Friday night, the animals were out to play, he his copy of ‘Heat,’ three bacon and tomato sandwiches, a flask of tea. He settled himself in his chair, put his feet up, thought:
Ah, this is the life
.
He loved the weekend, they wouldn’t be dragging the scum in until about three/four in the morning, so he had a good two hours of reading and at least a half hour of kip.
Back home, McDonald was in the bath, his head back, Thin Lizzy booming from the speakers, a glass of Scotch on the rim of the bath, and he thought about Dad’s army… thought, with deep satisfaction:
Didn’t they do fucking great
.
Trick, meanwhile, was having his jaw wired and that, plus the kick in the balls, had deprived him of speech, not that he had a whole lot to say, except perhaps:
‘Fuck me.’
The knife wielder was having one of his legs amputated.
In another hospital, not a mile away, Bill suffered a massive coronary and was dead in twenty minutes.
The docker began to weep.
A NEW PHENOMENON HAD swept the country… happy slapping. Young people strode up to an unsuspecting individual, slapped them harshly across the face, and used their mobile phone camera to instantly sent the shocked reaction to all their friends. It had mutated to extreme forms, one case where a teenage girl was photographed as she was raped. In its lesser form, members of the public, usually single women, were approached by a young person and, out of the blue, walloped into the face as the camera recorded and transmitted instantly their reaction to the assailant’s mates.
It was becoming a national pastime.
After the terrible bombings in London, it actually increased, photos of victims, their faces covered in blood, were snapped by youngsters on the prowl. The tabloids loved it, displaying shocked outrage, of course, but it was the sort of story they couldn’t invent and there was no indication of it abating. Psychologists, sociologists, et al. wrung their collective hands and said it was a sign of the corrosion of society and one more stage in the total breakdown of moral values.
A teenage boy, arrested after he’d happy slapped a woman in her seventies.
Asked why he did it, said:
‘ ’Cos it like, you know, rocks.’
FALLS APPEARED FOR duty with her stripes proudly displayed on her arm, she tried to appear cool with it, but a shit-eating grin threatened to engulf her features at any time. The other cops, grudgingly went:
‘Sarge.’
The term like bile in their respective throats. She was summoned to Brown’s office. She was confident the Super had a little congratulatory speech prepared, the first black female sergeant! She thought to herself:
It’s been a long time coming
.
And she resolved to be suitably humble and, what was the term, yeah, self-effacing.
She knocked on the door, her sense of anticipation at its zenith. She was taken aback to see PC Lane there, the fuck was he doing at her moment? Lane was the lamest cop on the force, so bland he could only be described as beige. He’d had one moment of glory when he was photographed with Tony Blair, but old Tony had lost a lot of kudos since then. Even Lane’s wife had removed the framed photo from their mantelpiece,
replaced it with the Dalai-lama, always a safe bet. He never said nowt, and people were vague as what exactly he ever did. The Super was huddled over papers, took five minutes before looking up, and when finally he did, he said:
‘Ah, Falls, you’re late.’
No Sergeant
.
He leant back, addressed her, and Lane, asked:
‘Are you familiar with the happy-slapping scandal?’
Falls wanted to shout:
‘You pompous prick, it’s in the papers every bloody day.’
She conceded she was and Lane simply nodded. The Super said:
‘Good, then you know what’s involved. Now I don’t give a toss what they do in the rest of the country but not on my patch, do you understand?’
Falls couldn’t believe it, this was the plum assignment, she tried for control, asked:
‘And, sir, what is it you wish us to do?’
Brown’s face clouded, he caught the tone, barked:
‘Kennington seems to be the most popular site for the little bastards, get down there, stamp it out.’
Falls waited for more and the Super said:
‘I’m assigning PC Lane to accompany you. He has teenagers so he knows how they think, if anyone on the damn planet can ever be said to know that.’
The fact that Lane’s kids were grown adults was not something Lane mentioned.
Falls asked:
‘Is that all…
sir?
’
Brown was back in his papers, said:
‘Tell my secretary to bring my tea, and to make sure the biscuits are fresh, they were stale yesterday.’
And they were dismissed. There was no sign of his secretary and Lane, worried, asked:
‘Should we try and find her?’
Falls gave him her most withering look, said:
‘Take a wild fucking guess?’
For the next week, they covered the Kennington Road, with Falls sitting in the car and Lane on foot patrol. You’re the sergeant, you’re going to walk the beat with a constable?
Lane wasn’t happy, but he didn’t have a whole lot of choice and the odd times he did get to spend with Falls, she was so crabby, irritable, he was relieved to get back on solo patrol. They didn’t find any Happy Slappers but did grab two pickpockets, warned off the inevitable hookers, and were mainly bored out of their minds.
Lane, used to dull assignments, took it as more of the same, but Falls was seething. She went to see Brant, and he was on the verge of being discharged, sitting up in bed, reading a porn magazine. Most guys, sneaking a peek at one of these, if someone enters the room, they try and hide it, but Brant, he lay it open at its provocative page. Falls asked:
‘How do the nurses like your choice of reading?’
He looked almost the same as before, except his face was
visibly thinner and his skin a greyish pale. His spirit, that seemed as lethal as ever, he said:
‘The nurses gave it to me.’
He stared at her sergeant’s stripes, said:
‘Welcome to the club.’
She suddenly felt slightly ashamed of them, Brant knew she’d gotten them under false pretences. As if reading her mind, he said:
‘Don’t sweat how you got them, just be sure to make full use of the rank.’
She blurted out about her current assignment, and he gave his demonic smile, said:
‘You know why Brown is so gung ho to grab one of these slappers?’
She repeated the speech the Super had given them and he snorted, said:
‘Bollocks, his wife was a victim.’
She was going to ask him how he knew, but then information was his currency.
He said:
‘Those guys on the door, protecting me, bum a cig off one of them, the fat fuck, he has a. pack of Embassy.’
She said:
‘Isn’t smoking forbidden?’
And got the look.
He said:
‘Hon, when you’re a wounded cop, you can do what the fuck you like.’
She opened the door and, sure enough, one of the cops was fat and did have the cigs. He handed them over with:
‘Any chance he might buy his own?’
Falls nearly laughed, said:
‘Why don’t you ask him yourself?’
As Brant created a cloud of smoke above his head, Falls filled him in on the discovery of the dead body, the guy who’d shot Brant, and the subsequent call to Roberts. Brant listened without comment and Falls finally asked:
‘Aren’t you worried about the next attempt?’
He dropped the cig on the floor, said:
‘Put your sergeant’s heel on that, there’s a good girl.’
She picked it up, extinguished it in a glass of water, then, on consideration, put the soggy thing in her jacket. Brant was highly amused, said:
‘Come back this evening, you can do a clean sweep.’
And immediately lit another. He had a way of constantly irritating a person and once he knew you were fucked, he never let up. And despite all that, there was no better guy to have in your corner. She repeated her question, and he said:
‘I hope he takes a shot at me sooner rather than later.’
Anyone else, you’d call it bravado. He said:
‘You want off this shite detail you’re on?’
She said of course, but there hadn’t been a single instance. Brant shook his head, said:
‘Christ, no wonder you could never pass the exam.’
She winced, and he let that hover, then said:
‘Get hold of a mobile phone, with the camera on it, then grab the first fuck you see. Bring him in.’
She stared at him, asked:
‘You mean plant it on a person?’
He laughed, the one that had no relation to warmth or indeed humour, said:
‘Well, he’s hardly going to plant it on himself.’
She hated to admit it to herself, but she’d do nigh anything to get off the assignment, asked:
‘What about Lane?’
This time, he dropped the butt in the glass of water, it made a soft plink. He said:
‘Lane could give a fuck. How do you think he’s put in eighteen years and never made noise? You’re the sergeant, you tell him what’s happened, after you nick the culprit.’
She was beginning to like the sound of the set-up and asked:
‘But the guy, whoever we choose, won’t he claim it’s a set-up?’
Brant smiled.
‘Don’t they all.’
Before she left, she asked:
‘How are you feeling in yourself, they say a… a shooting
can take a long time to recover from. You could take early retirement?’
For once, he actually showed some emotion, surprise principally, asked:
‘And do what, become a Happy Slapper? This is the only gig I know.’