The Vengeance Man (22 page)

"Listen, you. Just pass the word on. From the Vengeance Man. To all yer scumbag wee pals. The next one of you lot that we catch will get the same treatment, or worse. No more mugging; ye hear me? Tell your friends. All your friends. D'ye understand?"

He nodded dumbly, eyes full of tears now. He'd bitten through his lip and blood smeared his teeth. I started to leave.  "Remember, laddy, it's oor revenge. No more fucking around with old ladies and kiddies.  We'll do it again, if we haf' tae. There's a contract oot on scum like you.   All of you. You got that?"

I kicked his leg again, hard where the hands held it together. Then I turned and walked rapidly away, away from the screams, away from the panting body of Jelly, her red trainers sprawled at an impossible angle. She’d never walk again. Tough. Little cow. Worst of the lot. I turned the corner away from the horror of the street. In the distance behind me I heard someone shout, ‘Stop!’

Before the view was blotted out I looked back once. Unaccountably an image of the bloody square at Hasak flashed into my mind; the same little knot of people, the same litter of bodies, the same distant shouts.  Then people started running towards the three bodies, and someone was screaming. In contrast, Ivor's wails sounded weak and shrill.   Time to get out fast.

I whipped round the corner, dragging off the, wig and glasses and sprinted the twenty metres to the next street as hard as I could.  The plaster tore at my face. Round that bend my car was parked a hundred metres up, round another corner. As I hurtled along, I banged into a large black woman.

"Hey, what you doin', man?"

"Sorry, lady, I'm just going to get help. Someone's been hurt. Down there."     

I waved back to the street I'd left. On an inspiration I said, as urgently as I could, "Can you help them? I'll phone for
the police and an ambulance."

She nodded dumbly and disappeared open-mouthed in the direction I'd just come from, leaving me to walk to the car, parked in the row of others on the quiet road without any CCTV cameras, and get in fast.    There was no time to lose.

Checking the mirror, I pulled slowly away, glad that I'd taken the precaution of pointing the car in the right direction when I'd parked. I was the only traffic moving in the road and now I wanted to put as much distance as possible between myself and the avenue. The car seemed to move slowly and reluctantly.

At the top of the road I looked back. Nothing. No-one had come round the corner.   I was safe, with only the distant wail of a police car.   I drove steadily up to the main road, noting with almost cold detachment that a splatter of small dark spots were on the trousers of the o
l
d grey suit. I supposed it was Jelly's coughed-up blood, and shrugged. The pistol lumped heavy in my pocket. I'd got away with it. A Met Rover, siren wailing, light flashing, roared round the corner, jumping the lights, to disappear back towards the avenue.

Did I feel bad about what I’d done?

Did I fuck
. . .

To my surprise, my knees were trembling.

A Little Relief

BLOOD BATH IN BRIXTON

THREE SHOT IN COLD BLOOD

Police Vigilante Theory

I remembered a cynical old BBC journalist that I'd drunk with in Northern Ireland years ago. We'd been lamenting the fact that the real horror stories somehow never seemed to make it intact across the Irish Sea. He'd considered the point judiciously as he swilled his whiskey, hunched over the bar.

"Ah, well, you've got to remember that
real
news, printable that-day, get-it-in-the-TV-bulletin-at-six-o'clock news, has got to happen before noon and within a twelve mile radius of Charing Cross. That's the real definition of news  to the BBC newsroom. Bastards…." And with that he'd returned to the vital issue of keeping Bushmills Distillery in business, like the seasoned newsman he was.

I was reminded of this professional definition as I contemplated the Standard's page one story that afternoon. To say it was worth reading would be an understatement. Over a blurry, blown-up amateur photograph, showing a blanketed body on the ground, framed against an ambulance and worried-looking policemen, two inch headlines screamed their message. ‘
Slaughter in SE 10’
The combination of the wounded muggers' stories and my own terse call to the Press Association guaranteed the full press treatment on a day that could only boast yet another £25,000 Post Office snatch as competition for the front page.

As I plodded through the afternoon's work, my first feelings of being drained and nervy were overtaken by a growing elation. I'd done it. I'd done something that might make an impact, and it had worked. I wondered what Barbara would think, now. The news bulletins flickered on and off all away all afternoon in the ops room and we stopped every so often to listen to some breathless wannabe reporter doing their piece to camera live for the viewing audience but more importantly, for the
furtherance
of their own careers. As casually as possible I scanned the developing story.

The bald facts were clear by three o'clock. I'd killed one - the sallow-faced Nelson - and paralysed another from the waist down. The red shoes girl wouldn't be twinkling around Brixton ever again, pouring bleach onto babies' faces. She was destined for a wheelchair and Ivor would walk with a limp and a stick for the rest of his life. Even without reading between the lines, the press hadn't got a word of sympathy for them; oblique references to gang violence, ASBOs, “young tearaways” and 'known minor criminals' suggested a certain grim satisfaction that I shared.

As the story broke, the inevitable vigilante theory surfaced when the police spokesman had to admit, after close questioning, that the 'three injured young people' as he carefully called them were apparently the juveniles suspected of or wanted for some particularly nasty crimes. As two of them came from ethnic minorities the situation looked even messier.  Scenting an even
juicier
story still, the press began to float their own theories about what had really gone on.  

A bandwagon began to roll. By the five o'clock news, the news reader was reporting that the police feared the incident could spark off a wave of more attacks against young people - at which point the Establishment weighed in with full force.

Rows of grave talking heads were on and off the television screen that evening, all pointing out that the attack was not anti-black, but anti-mugging, and was not entirely unwelcome to the inhabitants of Brixton, or London in general, black and white alike.  Suitably selected respectable and articulate citizens of the area nodded wisely at the sage remarks of the good and the great, and agreed that despite my unorthodox methods, anything that helped to clean up the streets and make them safer for 'decent, honest folk' had to be ... well, helpful. Of course, everybody added hastily, they didn't condone violence, but  the police had been powerless, and apparently less than willing to do anything, so...

In fact, it was a fine old muddle. The more radical elements, recruited for 'balance', squawked that the whole thing was nothing more than a Metropolitan Police plot to eradicate crooks they couldn't convict. The idea of the Met sending South American-style death squads into darkest Brixton in unmarked cars to rub out muggers didn't really strike the right note somehow.

The respectable audiences looked uncomfortably at one another and shook their heads. The Met police spokesman looked aggrieved and hurt, but kept a stiff upper lip. Even the interviewers looked sceptical, but as they all agreed, if it wasn't racist and wasn't political and it wasn't the Met's mythical Ton Ton Macoutes, then only one realistic  motive was left – revenge against a gang of known thugs. But who by?

The highpoint of the evening came on TV’s 'Question Time' when a well known radical London MP claimed that Ivor, Redshoes and Sallowface were really martyrs to the black struggle for the oppressed working man in South London. His opponent, a formidable black lady MP from Lewisham replied in unequivocal terms that rich champagne socialists living in radical chic in NW 6 were ill-equipped to pontificate on the problems of SE 13. Not only that, but the three in question were scum who had terrorised decent citizens and brought the decent God-fearing black community into disrepute and she hoped that a lot of other hooligans in the area would get the message too and… 
She stopped to draw breath at about this point. .

An animal growl of approval came from the audience, making the chairman mouth grave  platitudes about the rule of law, at which point a large black lady in the audience pointed at the radical MP, who was looking distinctly uncomfortable, and said in ringing tones, "What law? His law?  This Vengeance Man or whoever done this has done more to uphold the rule of law in the area than any do-gooding police community relations project. And as for the local Council,” she spat out…

Anyway, you get the drift.  The verbal battle burst out anew at this. Grinning from ear to ear, I retired to bed with a book and the stereo. For the first time in ages I missed not having someone to share my satisfaction

*
             
*
             
*

By next morning the papers had got the Press act together and, except for the Mirror (which claimed
in an exclusive
that the shooting was the work of Neo-Nazi racists), a common line emerged.   To my surprise, I was ‘The Vengeance Man’, a folk hero, a sort of cross between Batman and Robin Hood.  To say that I was startled would be an understatement.  I had underestimated the British Press's capability to invent myths and peddle them as truth.   I read on, with a mixture of amusement and alarm.   Maybe Hepworth had been right: perhaps I
was
a dangerous schizophrenic.  At least, that’s what the papers were saying.

Because I had become a gang.

Clearly the two survivors had talked openly to the police and, by the sound of it, to the reporters, too. I had been a 'group of fierce Scots killers armed to the teeth', 'with the reactions of a panther'.  Now, while I'm as amused
by press
bullshit as the next man, I could live without this kind of nonsense.  A folk hero I'm not.   And there’s only one of me.

The broadsheet leader columns were more thoughtful and restrained. All of them agreed, however, that what I'd done had been thoroughly reprehensible and I must be tracked down. But there was a constant undertone of satisfaction about the whole affair that no-one could miss, and that was making a lot of policeman uncomfortable. After all, as one of the media pundits said on the radio, "This Vengeance Man - he's hardly a danger to the law-abiding general public, is he?"

I noticed that even when they  dragged the Home Secretary onto the ‘Today’ programme to denounce me, there seemed to be a certain ambivalence; hard to pin down, but definitely there. However, I was clearly a challenge to Establishment values, and they didn't like that.

Nowhere was this more marked than when one of the police spokesmen on the 'Today' programme had speculated on the link between Spicer, Varley and the three muggers. I stopped shaving to listen as the interviewer asked him if there were any links between the three crimes.  The Assistant Commissioner was ultra-cautious. After all, media exposure like this could ruin his career, you could almost hear him thinking. "Well, we have no evidence of that at the moment. They may not be linked."

"Oh, come now, Commissioner. Surely all three attacks; that's Spicer, Varley and now this, they all described a tallish Scots man?  This Vengeance Man? And a group of Scotsmen? And didn't they say on all three occasions that
they were
'taking revenge'?"

"Well, we can't be too sure. There might be a pattern, I agree, but we mustn't  appear to be too definite, too soon. These are still early days in our enquiries, you know."

"Do you really mean to say that these three crimes, all invol
ving this Scotsman or this gang
, are not connected?"

"Well, as I say, we wouldn't like to commit ourselves at this stage of our enquiries. We don't want to encourage public alarm, do we? This whole Vengeance Man idea is very dangerous. People taking the law into their own hands for whatever reason. The important thing is that we don't want to encourage this sort of thing, do we?" he pleaded. Too right, sport, I thought: it could put you lot out of a job, couldn't it?

I returned to scraping away at my chin, delighted by the interviewer's obvious disbelief and the policeman's wriggling. The interviewer, unimpressed, changed tack. "Very well, Commissioner, what would you say, then, to members of the black community who claim that they must protect themselves as there is now some kind of group of, what appears to be anti-black, anti-gang vigilantes prowling the streets of South London?  Vigilantes who
  may strike again ?”

The policeman reacted hastily. "Oh, I don't believe that's the case. We don't want to cause unnecessary alarm, do we? After all, there's only been the attack on these three - ah - unfortunate members of the community, black
and
white, here and the same applies to the other two cases as well. It’s clear that there seems to have been a pretty specific motive in each case. It’s the same in all three attacks, surely? The victims all appear to have done something that could make them a target….a potential target…”

I stopped shaving again and held my breath. He'd fallen for it. The interviewer, seemingly impressed by the policeman's careful jargon, set up the trap door with an apparently bland: "Well, if it wasn't some racially motivated group who shot these three young muggers, alleged muggers, then who was it?"

The pedestrian spokesman stepped onto the trapdoor. "Oh I think it’s something more like revenge." Too late, the policeman saw the admission he'd plunged into.  "Well, that's what we beli
eve the motive to be. Might be.
"

Pressing his advantage, the interviewer pounced. "So you admit that someone, some self appointed vigilante
is
going around
taking revenge? Perhaps on a contract?   That perhaps there
is
a some kind of Vengeance Man, some vigilante gang, out there?

But the policeman wouldn't be drawn any more and retreated behind the smokescreen of verbiage that police spokesmen must learn at the Police College at Bramshill.   If he thought it improved the Police's image on this occasion, he was badly wrong.  Instead it left a clear impression that there was a gang of vigilantes out there or some Vengeance Man, and that he was dangerous, armed to the teeth and only hitting known vill
ai
ns of the nastiest sort. By the end of the ‘Today’ interview, they'd made me sound like Clark Kent, padding around wild-eyed looking for a phone booth to change in and doing stuff the police couldn't
– or wouldn’t -
do.

In a high old humour I set out to work. My stars said that Jupiter was going backwards, and that I'd better watch out.

Which was crap, as I had a good day with things seeming to click magically into place. But when I got back that evening, something was missing. By eight o'clock I decided, God knows why, I had to get out of the flat.   Normally I'm totally self contained, but for once I felt the walls were coming in on me. I decided to eat out and wandered to the only wine bar in the area that doesn't seem to be the haunt of the local bunch of floating gayboys.

As I sat, feeling curiously dissatisfied, picking at some mushrooms and a carafe of very
vin-ordinaire,
I glanced up, to meet a pair of soft brown eyes looking at me. They seemed familiar. Puzzled, I held them a fraction longer than is wise. 'Avoid eye contact' is one of the oldest rules in the book to prevent drawing attention to yourself.   Baffled, I looked again. Where had I seen those eyes before?

Suddenly I remembered. After I'd gone to see Barbara's baby I had called into a pub for a drink; it was there that I had seen a pale-faced little piece, with the same rather spaniel-like dark brown eyes, that looked unusual - and then I'd walked out.    This time she smiled back; a little nervously, I thought.    No wonder, I was obviously staring at her. I answered her smile and returned to my mushrooms.    From time to time I looked up; she caught my eye again and eventually I got up to go to the Gents.

On my return I deliberately walked close by her stool. She looked at me and smiled again - a warm, inviting sort of smile that had me saying, "Don't I know you from somewhere?" almost without realising it.