The Crime Tsar (7 page)

The feelings the fat woman and death's companion had stirred in him were replaced by something like fear when he saw her face. It was deep black, an African colour without the friendly warmth of the West Indies. A slate-blue-black with the cheeks deeply scarred by three slashes on either side.

Her features were without a shadow of the Caucasian in size or position. She was shockingly alien, unexpected. But it was her eyes that repelled Shackleton though he was unable to look away. They were exactly like the cowrie shells used for eyes in African sculpture. As if the eyeball had been folded over and the edges crudely sewn together.

For a second he wanted to get nearer to pull them out, to find the real eyes underneath. After a moment she turned her unsmiling ebony face and unsettling eyes away from him and continued dusting. She bent from the waist, legs straight, and as she did he realised she must be over two metres tall and as slender and supple as a young tree. He had never seen a human being so different, so disturbing.

‘You come for the riot, Mr Shackleton?'

The fat woman was still smiling, her teeth perfect white tombstones.

‘I hope there won't be one,' he replied with his most self-deprecating dip of the head.

‘No, Thomas, No …'

She was laughing now, laughing at him, joined soundlessly by the death's head next to her.

‘You're counting on one … counting on it, child.'

And in that moment he felt like a child. Caught in a lie.

Geoffrey Carter's Rover arrived while the women were still chuckling affectionately. Back on safe ground Shackleton turned abruptly, glad to be rid of the women, and walked over to him.

‘I don't think the Rover's a good idea,' he said as Carter got out.

‘No … you're probably right. I'll tell the driver to wait here. We'll take your car, shall we?'

As they walked to the patrol car Shackleton could feel the women watching him. The hairs on the back of his neck rose. With an irritated gesture he rubbed his hand over them and got into the front passenger seat next to Gordon. Carter sat in the back.

They drove slowly towards the estate. As they got closer they saw police vans waiting around every corner, lads in uniforms, tense, ready, not so different from the lads in the flats. Dog handlers standing with their patient animals close by their legs.
And then the black backs of the riot police, legs planted apart, unmoving.

Shackleton signalled Gordon to stop. The three men got out. Inspector Ron Randall hurried towards them. His position Silver, number two in command when trouble kicked off. Both chiefs smiled as if this were a meeting in the social club. Carter shook his hand, bending slightly to speak to him. The same height as Shackleton, he had the wiry build of a marathon runner and looked almost delicate next to the other chief. Thin-faced and fine-boned, he had earned the name of Bambi from his force because of his leggy grace and long-lashed eyes.

They told Randall it was their intention to go in, to try to defuse the situation. Randall was appalled – in his opinion these two clothes horses would only make things worse. He tried to dissuade them, then tried to persuade them to take armed officers with them.

Their faces were grave, concentrating as though listening to him, but he knew the chance of a media coup was more to them than caution. That retiring with no mortgage and a good pension was not an ambition for either of them.

As they turned away from Randall he radioed Gold, Superintendent Don Cork.

‘Mr Shackleton and Mr Carter are going in alone. They want to negotiate face to face. We are to keep back. I repeat, the Chief Constables wish us to keep back.'

Unspoken but heard by Cork was the certainty that if it went wrong the resulting chaos would result in nationwide race riots. Randall remembered there'd been a chief constable of Essex who'd exchanged himself for a hostage during a pub siege once but this wasn't about bravery. This was about self-promotion. Gold saw the repercussions for his own career clearly. If it all went pear-shaped and there was an inquiry he would be responsible.

‘Gold to Silver. Instruct Mr Shackleton and Mr Carter they are not, repeat not, to proceed.'

‘It's too late,' Randall replied.

There was a pause. The radio crackled, then Gold's voice, clear in the heavy silence.

‘What a pair of wankers.'

The two chiefs with Gordon a pace behind walked in silence up to the tape. As they touched it a strange wailing sound echoed round the
empty streets and the sound of metal pipes being beaten against concrete started up. Rhythmic, frightening.

Out of the corner of his eye Shackleton saw a movement. Too late to be avoided, a flaming milk bottle filled with petrol landed close to their feet. The flames spread out across the road. A roar of approval from the unseen foe; and then they began to show themselves. On the roofs, the walkways and in the doorways young men appeared, all with their faces shrouded in handkerchiefs and scarves. A group of them started to bounce a car parked in their route. Like army ants they swarmed over it and in minutes it was on its back. Alight.

Carter and Shackleton stood, watching, still. Behind them a camera crew, carrying a ludicrous microphone clad in a shaggy fur coat on a long pole.

‘BBC, sir,' murmured Gordon.

Shackleton nodded briefly. Unhurriedly he bent down and ducked under the tape. Carter followed, then Gordon. Two officers barred the way of the camera crew but Tom turned and beckoned them on.

‘Just them,' he said.

When the small group was under the tape Shackleton and Carter began to walk steadily towards the youths and the flaming car. Randall watched, torn between admiration and contempt. His mind had already dealt with the deaths of the chiefs and the appalling aftermath. He would be the one to start the Armageddon. The air in his radio hissed, waiting for a command. The command to start a race war throughout Britain.

A half-brick was thrown and skidded along in front of the chiefs. Another. Someone behind Shackleton yelped sharply. He glanced round; the sound man had been struck on the shin. Shackleton turned back, his careful pace uninterrupted. This was his element, the only time he could simply be. No fear and no thought, just a wave of adrenalin and total relaxation.

Carter, beside him, was vibrating with the danger they were in, aware of every eye, every twitching hand. Where Shackleton was experiencing an athlete's calm before the big race, Carter was shaking with stage fright.

Three masked youths, carrying knives and baseball bats, started to walk towards them. Carter almost laughed. It was too
High Noon
. Too melodramatic.

Behind the three masked youths came another six, then seven, ten.
Twenty. All armed. Shackleton saw they were both Sudanese and Pakistani. The police had already united the warring factions. A thought went through his head so fast he almost didn't hear it: he wondered how it felt to be liked.

The crowd was jittery, unsure, dangerous. The police stopped with about five feet between them and the ring leaders. Immediately they were surrounded. The cameraman swivelled round, videoing every hidden face, then moved sideways to get the chief constables facing the rioters.

Slowly Shackleton reached up and removed his gold-laden hat and tucked it, with his swagger stick, under his arm. A fraction later Carter followed suit. Then, just as deliberately, Shackleton removed his soft brown gloves. Carter did the same.

With the ritual tension of samurai they handed their hats, sticks and gloves to Gordon without taking their eyes off the boys in front of them. It was as if they were handing in their weapons. Shackleton knew the psychological effect this disarming would have.

The ring leader couldn't stand Shackleton's steady, unblinking look any more.

‘What the fuck do you want? Fucking pig.'

‘My name's Tom Shackleton, I'm your Chief Constable and this is my colleague Geoffrey Carter. He is Chief Constable of our neighbouring area.'

His expression softened almost imperceptibly.

‘We want to know what your grievances are. What's made you feel this strongly? We want to know what we can do to help.'

A pause. Then a voice at the back, made brave by anonymity, screamed, ‘Kill them! Kill the bastards!'

The camera swung around towards the voice.

‘Take them hostage!'

This suggestion found more favour with the majority. Their voices swelled in agreement. ‘Yeah … keep 'em here. Then they'll have to listen, right?'

The excitement caused by this idea swept through the youths, melding them into a mob. The small group in the middle sensed the mood change.

Carter felt the sweat of fear run down his arms and legs. Cold. Hands reached towards them. The camera was knocked to the ground. Shackleton was grabbed by the arms and smashed viciously
on the backs of the knees by a baseball bat. Carter was felled by a blow to his temple.

Gordon, anxious to hide his gun, cowered and assured them he'd come quietly. The mob thought this hilarious and several of them kicked him contemptuously. He curled over, apparently in pain, in reality covering the hand gun. They grabbed the hats, gloves and sticks from him and distributed them among the crowd. The camera crew recovered their camera and were simply shoved and pushed along behind.

Randall, unable to deploy his troops without further risk to the chiefs and the situation, stared helplessly. It would soon be canteen legend that he'd stood repeating over and over again, ‘Idiots. Fucking stupid fucking arrogant fucking idiots.'

When the mob stopped, Shackleton, Carter and the camera crew found themselves in the community centre. Moulded plastic chairs were hastily unstacked for them and they were pushed down on to them. The young man who seemed to be emerging as the leader ordered the camera crew to keep filming.

‘Right …' said the leader, a shade too loudly. ‘What we want is this … we want justice, right? The police murdered two boys from this estate and we want justice.'

There was a roar of approval.

‘So you're going to stay here till we get it.'

‘Fine,' replied Tom reasonably. ‘First of all… what shall I call you?'

There was a suspicious pause, then, ‘Ali. Call me Ali.'

‘Well, Ali,' he continued seamlessly. ‘I think you ought to know one of the boys, Sammi, is in a serious but stable condition in hospital. He is not dead.'

This caused a furore. Some believed him, others shouted ‘Liar!'. Ali joined in the shouting, saying even if it was true, the other boy was still dead, at the hands of the police. Someone punched Tom on the side of the head, spitting at him. He reached into his pocket and took out an immaculate cotton handkerchief. Lucy had put a drop of her perfume on it. He didn't notice it as he wiped the spittle off his face.

‘I want to speak to Mr Qureishi.'

‘You talk to us – no one else.'

He smiled. ‘You're not afraid, are you? Let me speak to him. You know he doesn't take sides. He is the father of your community, isn't he?'

This caused uproar: this white symbol of the establishment was calling the Pakistanis to order as Muslims. The Sudanese were equally loud in their Christian outrage.

Shackleton's voice rose to be heard.

‘You won't believe whatever I say. I have the results of the post-mortem on the other boy but you want to believe it was murder. I can't change your minds if you won't listen. If you don't want to hear the truth. Why not let Imam Qureishi and Grandfather Joseph decide if I'm lying?'

The roar of ‘No's was deafening. One lad had a can of petrol and showered it over the two chiefs. He was immediately knocked to the ground by others screaming they had cigarettes. It was degenerating into anarchy. Ali was losing control. At the back of the prefabricated room two groups of elderly women watched, expressionless.

As Carter was dragged off his chair by the shoulder of his uniform, sending silver buttons rolling across the floor, an old, bearded man in calf-length shirt over baggy cotton trousers and wearing a brown knitted hat over the crown of his white hair pushed his way into the room. Behind him a second old man in white robes. His Modigliani face the dark, delicately featured oval of the Sudan. Their arrival seemed to inflame the crowd further.

‘This isn't your fight.'

‘There's no place for old men here.'

‘Go home and watch the telly, Grandad.'

But the voices were less sure, less strident.

The old men approached Carter and Shackleton.

‘Chief Constable …'

Shackleton stood up. Carter followed.

‘Ah and Mr Carter. How do you do.'

The four men shook hands.

Shackleton was solicitous.

‘Mr Qureishi, how are you? And your family?'

‘As you see,' said the old man wryly. ‘My grandsons are here.'

He lowered his thin body on to one of the chairs.

Grandfather Joseph nodded but said nothing. He sat gracefully and exchanged a look with Mr Qureishi, who began to speak quietly but with some strength.

‘You have heard the grievances of the young people. They believe the police are murderers. That the life of an Asian or an African is not
so important as the life of a white or even a Caribbean child. You always know those blacks will kick up a stink, but we, no, we prefer a quiet life. We are peaceable, running our corner shops and sending our children to university. Well… these young people are different. You know that from Bradford. They don't have our patience. You are their enemy.'

Tom waited for the old man to finish, then said, just as quietly, just as reasonably, ‘I want to assure you, assure you all, that is not the case. As Mr Qureishi and Grandfather Joseph know, Mr Carter and I have worked hard since we came here to improve relations between the police and your two communities.'

‘Didn't fuckin' work, did it?' came a voice from the back.

‘Obviously not,' said Tom without a trace of irony. ‘And for that I apologise. I want you to know that I deeply regret the death of young Mohammed and if any of my officers were culpable I will not rest until they have been brought to justice.'