Brixton, London, June 1987
Yawning widely, Larry Guthrie strolled down Mostyn Road on his way to the New World cafe round the corner. It was a beautiful day, temperature in the mid-twenties, with a slight breeze and the occasional cloud skipping across a sharp blue sky. It was the kind of day that should make you happy to be alive, but the weather currently didn’t interest Larry very much. It had been a late night and the seventeen year old could have done with more than a couple of extra hours in bed. Sleep, however, would have to wait. Right now, Larry was hungry. And he was also on a schedule. There was more work to be done this afternoon too, and his was not the kind of job that allowed you to throw a sickie and hide under the duvet. People needed their gear for Saturday night and therefore business would be brisk. Anyway, some pancakes and coffee would keep his tiredness at bay. Tomorrow, he promised himself, he wouldn’t get out of bed at all.
Looking up from his plodding feet, he glanced at two young boys playing on the swings in Mostyn Gardens. Only a few years ago and that had been him. In a few years’ time, if not sooner, this life of his would be theirs. Sticking his hands deeper into the pockets of his hooded sweatshirt, Larry returned his gaze to the pavement and increased his pace. Eyes down, he didn’t see the man with the lengthening stride walking towards him. Nor did he see the man pull out a gun and aim it at Larry’s stomach.
When the gun went off, the noise was so shocking that Larry didn’t even realise he’d been hit. His hands went to his ears, rather than his guts. Then, once he went down, everything went silent. He could hear nothing but his beating heart and the blood pulsing in his temples. He blinked repeatedly, trying to focus on the gun that was now hovering barely six inches from his face. He wondered if he would be able to see the bullet approach. In the event, as the muzzle twitched again, there was only darkness.
Feeling like a spare prick at a whore’s wedding, Constable John Carlyle watched the forensics team going about their business and wondered what exactly he himself should be doing. For a while, he just stood there looking at the blood-splattered trainers of Larry Guthrie sticking out from under the dark green sheet that had been casually dropped over the boy’s body. Carlyle recognised the Nike high-top Dunks from a recent spread in The Face magazine, and he felt a stab of envy: the sneakers were way out of his price range. The favoured footwear of various local gangs, such as Young Thugs, the Cartel Boys, the Alligator Crew and the Superstar Gang, they weren’t even on sale in the UK yet, but had to be brought over from the United States at a cost of several hundred dollars a time. Carlyle looked on as a technician removed the trainers from Guthrie’s sockless feet and placed each one in its own evidence bag. At least he died with his boots on, he reflected, smiling grimly to himself.
One of the detectives standing over the body finally took offence at his idleness. ‘Don’t just stand there gawping, sunshine,’ he shouted. ‘Get across the street and start knocking on some bloody doors.’ Reluctantly, Carlyle trooped off to report for duty with the sergeant who was out organising the canvassing of potential witnesses.
Ten minutes later, some old codger was bending his ear: ‘The area has become really terrible,’ the man complained. ‘It’s a war zone. Every night you can hear shouting and bawling. Gunfire, too, sometimes. Gangs of kids shouting in street slang. No one feels safe here. You’re constantly looking over your shoulder when you’re out and about. It’s the folk with young families that I feel sorry for.’ He pointed in the direction of the body. ‘How do you explain that to a six year old? It’s a disgrace and you people should do something about it.’
Carlyle stood there, nodding absentmindedly.
You people? Thanks.
He glanced up at a VOTE LABOUR poster in one of the neighbouring windows. He’d have thought that the residents inside would have taken that down by now. It was more than thirty-six hours since Margaret Thatcher had recorded her third crushing election victory on the bounce. According to the media, they were all now officially ‘Thatcher’s Children’. If it was difficult to remember what life had been like before she arrived, it was becoming increasingly impossible to imagine what life might be like after she departed – that was if she ever departed.
Several hours and dozens of interviews later, Carlyle felt hot, hungry and hacked off. Lots of people had heard the screaming, lots of people had heard the police sirens, lots of people had an opinion on how the neighbourhood was going downhill, and everyone had an opinion on the unbelievably piss-poor job that the police were doing. No one, however, had seen anything or had any useful information to share. He was delighted when the end of his shift finally approached, having turned down flat the sergeant’s offer of overtime. Carlyle needed a shower and something to eat. He was taking Helen to see Angel Heart at the Ritzy, and was looking forward to an enjoyable Saturday night. The job could fuck right off.
Carlyle was now four months into a stint working out of the station on Brixton Road. If anything, it was a rougher beat than his previous postings at Shepherds Bush and Southwark, but he was enjoying it immensely. In the locker room, someone had scrawled the legend ‘Twinned with Fort Apache, the Bronx’. A not unreasonable comparison considering this was the kind of place where everyone took pretty much in their stride the shooting of a local gang member in broad daylight in a residential street.
Even here in battle-hardened Brixton, the news that the gun that killed Larry Guthrie was a Browning BDA sent a frisson of nervous excitement through the ranks. The BDA was a modern, Belgian-made, 9 mm semi-automatic pistol, therefore a very fancy piece of kit indeed for a bunch of local hooligans to be using. Even more surprising was the fact that it been deliberately tossed away at the scene. Local criminals getting hold of guns was one thing; being well connected and well resourced enough to casually discard them once they’d been fired was another. At the station, the gossip was that this Guthrie killing threatened the start of a new round of drug-related violence that would have a posse of local and national politicians down on their backs in their usual search for easy answers and quick results.
At least it’s not my problem, thought Carlyle, as he stepped out of the station. It was just after six in the evening and he was looking good in his best grey and red Fred Perry polo shirt, a pair of black Levi 501s and a new pair of Doc Martens. With plenty of time to spare, he wandered slowly along Brixton Road, before turning into Coldharbour Lane in search of some food. He was standing by a set of traffic lights, waiting to cross the road, when he heard a nearby driver blast on his horn.
‘John!’
He looked up to see Dominic Silver leaning out of the driver’s window of a rather knackered-looking, copper-coloured Ford Capri. ‘Get in,’ Dom shouted, popping his head back inside and pushing open the passenger door. The lights changed back to green and the drivers behind Silver began noisily expressing their impatience. ‘Hurry up!’
Carlyle jogged over and jumped into the car. He pulled on his safety belt as Dom accelerated away from the crossing, while sticking one arm out the window to flip a finger at the drivers behind.
‘Good to see you, man!’ Dom said with a grin, returning both hands to the steering wheel. ‘Long time no see.’
‘You, too,’ said Carlyle, staring into the traffic ahead. He wondered what Dom wanted. More to the point, why had he himself been so quick to jump into his bloody car? They hadn’t seen each other for more than a year and this part of south London wasn’t anywhere close to Dom’s turf. With a sinking heart, Carlyle knew that this wasn’t likely to be merely a social call.
‘You OK for time?’ Dom asked, picking out a sign for Blackheath and heading east.
Carlyle made a show of looking for his watch. He had agreed to meet Helen back at Brixton tube station in just under two hours, as the film started half an hour later. ‘I’ve got about an hour,’ he said cautiously.
‘Perfect,’ Dom grinned. ‘Let’s go and have a little drink.’
The traffic was light for a Saturday evening. Less than twenty minutes later, they were sitting in the beer garden of the Railway Arms in Blackheath Village. Carlyle wasn’t much of a drinker but, at the end of a hard day, the cold lager tasted good. A couple of pretty girls in short skirts and skimpy T-shirts were talking animatedly at a table nearby, and he casually gave them the once-over. Nothing special, but worth a look. Feeling the alcohol kicking in, he began to relax and waited for Dom to talk.
After a few minutes, Dom put down his glass. ‘Do you know what the “Great Stink” was?’
Carlyle thought about it for a second. ‘No.’
‘I forgot,’ Dom grinned, ‘you didn’t pay much attention at school, did you?’
Carlyle made a face and took another swig of beer.
‘The Great Stink,’ Dom continued, ‘was in 1858. Back then, the smell of sewage in the Thames was so bad that it, quite literally, got up the noses of the politicians in the House of Commons. They eventually demanded action, and the great Joseph Bazalgette came to their – and our – rescue.’
‘Who?’
‘The chief engineer of the Metropolitan Board of Works. He spent seven years building a 1300-mile system of sewers and pumping stations.’
‘I’ll remember that the next time I take a dump.’ Carlyle wondered what the hell Dom was on about.
‘It was a truly fantastic achievement.’
‘The history of shit.’ Carlyle took another sip of his lager. ‘How interesting. I don’t remember them teaching us about that at school, at all.’
‘I know,’ said Dom, shaking his head. ‘It’s criminal really. Joseph Bazalgette was a truly great Londoner. He got a knighthood in 1875 and there’s a small monument to him on the Victoria Embankment. Altogether, it’s a very, very small recognition of his genius. Any idiot can get a knighthood. Did you know that all civil-service permanent secretaries get them as a matter of course? What do they ever do?’
Carlyle shrugged. He forgotten how Dom could go off on one, once he’d picked a subject on which to pontificate.
‘The same goes for senior judges,’ Dom continued, warming to his theme, ‘and generals and ambassadors. At the very least, Joseph Bazalgette – the man who sorted out our shit – deserved a statue in Parliament Square. Or they could have named a bridge named after him, or… something.’
‘And the relevance of all this is?’ Carlyle smiled, demonstrating his willingness to indulge his ‘mate’.
‘The relevance of all this, Constable,’ said Dom, not missing a beat, ‘is that one of Bazalgette’s finest monuments is the Abbey Wood sewage works, which is not all that far from here.’
‘And?’
‘And… that’s where you’ll find the body.’
Carlyle glanced round. The plain girls had gone. Checking that no one else was within earshot, he looked at Dom. ‘What fucking body?’ he hissed.
‘The body of the muppet that shot Larry Guthrie this morning. It’s in one of the settlement tanks. There are a few… I’m sorry I can’t be more specific.’
‘Guthrie?’ Carlyle struggled to get his brain into gear. ‘That was only eight hours ago.’
Dom shrugged modestly. ‘We… they moved quickly. No one wants this thing to get out of hand. Both sides have lost a soldier. Additional compensation will be paid. It is time to call it quits and move on. All this cowboy bollocks is bad for business.’
‘So it was a drugs-related killing?’
Dom raised his eyes to the heavens and said nothing.
‘What’s the name of this “muppet”?’ Carlyle asked, gulping down another mouthful of lager.
Dom finished his pint. ‘Does it matter?’
‘Did this guy really do it?’
‘Absolutely.’
Carlyle frowned. ‘Evidence?’
‘Guthrie’s blood is on his clothes. Along with his own now, of course.’
Carlyle put his glass carefully on the table and looked Dom in the eye.’You didn’t…?’
‘Don’t be fucking stupid!’
‘So why are you telling me this?’
‘It needed sorting. You don’t need… you don’t want to know the details. This way, everybody wins: You look good, while keeping my name out of things, and I get kudos on my side for putting this business to bed, police investigation included. The message gets out that this thing is over, a score draw, and the streets are that little bit safer again for the Great British public.’ He waved his empty glass at Carlyle. ‘One for the road?’
Carlyle shook his head. ‘And just how am I supposed to have come across this info?’
Dom grinned. ‘Sources, old boy. Informants. Just make sure you don’t have to go in there yourself. I’m told that the stink really is something terrible.’
‘Thanks for the tip.’
‘My pleasure.’ Dom got up and gestured in the direction of the bar. ‘Sure you don’t want another one?’
Carlyle shook his head. While the shit expert went inside, he sat biting his lip, trying to keep in check his annoyance at being patronised. This was all bollocks. No way was he going to end up with any glory. He was a police constable, for fuck’s sake. Dom was really dropping him in it, and treating him like an idiot to boot. There was no chance he could get away with closing a murder case in just a matter of hours and not find himself questioned very closely about it. If he didn’t come up with a decent explanation, he would be under investigation himself. He couldn’t even think what a decent explanation might be.
After a little while, Carlyle decided that there was only one thing for it. He stood up and walked round the side of the pub to an old-fashioned red phone box that he’d noticed on the way in. Stepping inside, he dialled 999. Putting on a hopeless Irish accent (that being the only one he felt he could do), he relayed the details to a bored-sounding girl, mentioning the Browning BDA in the hope that would help convince her that this was more than just another nutter calling in with a useless tip. That was as much as he could do. Ultimately, they could check it out, or not; he couldn’t really give a fuck.
Finishing the call, he walked back to the table, while Dom was steadily draining his second pint.
Carlyle didn’t sit down. ‘I think we better get going now.’
‘No problem. I’ll drive you back.’ Dom emptied his glass and stood up.
‘Thanks.’ Carlyle took a final mouthful of his own beer, which has lost its cold edge and now felt warm and flat. ‘Let me just take a leak first.’