The Murder Exchange (8 page)

'I almost got killed. That's what happened. These
people Fowler had trouble with, they weren't messing
about.'

'Blimey, Max, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to get you
in the Barry. I thought it was routine stuff.'

'Who are these people? And what's the trouble
he's been having, exactly?'

The don't know. Honest. It was something to do
with the club. That's all I was told.' He exhaled
dramatically. 'Fuck, this is bad news. What's
happened to Fowler?'

I glared at him. 'Forget Fowler. And forget you
ever put him in contact with me. OK?'

Johnny's head went up and down like a nodding
dog. 'Yeah, yeah. Of course. No problem. Consider
it done.'

I took his arm again, this time squeezing harder.
He turned to protest but I stared him down. 'Are
you sure you're telling me the truth, Johnny? You
know nothing about that club that might help to
explain why people are getting all trigger happy
with Fowler?'

'No...'

'Because if I find out you do know something, anything
at all, then I'm going to hunt you down and I'm
going to kill you. Understand?' Harsh words, but
definitely necessary under the circumstances.

70
'Fuck it, Max, I'm telling the truth. I know there's
some dealing goes on down there, charlie and all
that, but that's about it.'

They say the eyes are the windows to the soul. I
slowed right down and stared straight into his. But
the windows were dirty and I couldn't tell whether
he was bullshitting or not.

'That's all I know, I swear to you. Look, Max, I'm
t srry. I really am. I was just trying to help.'

I let go of his arm, and managed a brief smile,
though God knows what there was to smile about.
'Well, it's a brand of help I can do without in the
future. And remember, say nothing about seeing
me to anyone. OK? Including Elaine Toms.'

'No problem. My lips are sealed.' He gave me a
Concerned look. A mate to a mate. 'Everything's all
right, though, isn't it, Max?'

'Oh yeah,' I told him, turning away. Ticketyfucking-boo.
See you around, Johnny.'

Gallan

I didn't have to work that night but, with my home
life being as non-existent as it was, I decided to stay
late in the incident room and catch up on paperwork.
Benin wasn't so keen and took off bang on
five-thirty, something I duly noted. There was an
all-units out on the car I'd spotted with the bullet
holes in it. Two of the station's uniforms had
stopped it and there'd been an altercation with the
driver, who'd fled the scene on foot, having

71
assaulted and injured both officers. Suspected
bloodstains had been found in the vehicle, which
was registered in the name of Max Iversson, an ex
soldier with no previous record, who matched
witness descriptions of the driver. Thankfully, it
was nothing to do with me any more, but I was
pleased that my observance had paid off, even if
the uniforms who'd done the stopping and who
were now off sick probably weren't.

It was ten to nine when I left the station. I went to
a cheap Italian off Upper Street I occasionally frequent and had a bowl of pasta and some garlic
bread, washed down with a couple of welcome
bottles of Peroni now that I was off duty. I suppose
you could say it was a lonely way to spend a Friday
evening, and you'd be right, it was, but I was beginning
to get used to it. This time barely a year ago, it
had all been a lot different. I'd been a DI at another
station south of the river, heading up through the
ranks in the direction of the DCI slot, with three
commendations under my belt. Crime down there
was bad, the hours were tough ... Paradise it
wasn't. But it wasn't a bad life and, unlike a
lot of my colleagues, I still had a stable domestic
situation. A wife of fifteen years, an eleven-year-old
daughter, a decent house in an area where the
weekly mugging tallies were still in single
figures...

Then, on the night they brought in Troy Farrow, it
all changed.

Troy Farrow was a seventeen-year-old street
robber who specialized in making victims of
schoolkids my daughter's age, relieving them

72
of their mobile phones and pocket money, and old
ladies, who he liked to pick off on pension day,
sometimes breaking a few frail bones in the
process. He had nine convictions altogether but had
only spent a total of three months inside, so the law
didn't exactly have him shaking in his Nike
trainers. He was shouting and cursing and
threatening all sorts as the arresting officers booked
him in for what was likely to be his tenth conviction:
the violent removal of a mobile phone from
the ear of a young secretary foolish enough to have
been walking down a busy street early evening
without keeping her wits about her. Unfortunately
for him, the street was under surveillance by
-Hirers in plain clothes and he was caught within
minutes. I was detailed to interview him, along
with a DC, because we were interested in getting
information from him regarding the near gang rape
of an eleven-year-old by a group who'd also robbed
her of her mobile and the bag of sweets she was
carrying. We didn't think Farrow had been
involved - it wasn't his style to molest his victims,
and the suspects had been described as being aged
between twelve and fourteen - but we were pretty
sure he would know who was. There wasn't much
that went on in Farrow's estate, crime-wise, that he
wasn't aware of, and kids like that would almost
certainly have bragged about what they'd done.

Farrow calmed down as he was taken down to
the interview room by two of the arresting officers,
with me and the DC following a few yards behind.
What happened next is still something of a mystery.
As Farrow and the arresting officers turned and

73
I

entered the room, he turned and said something to jg

one of them that I didn't quite catch but which I IT

was told later went along the lines of 'You pussies "W

can't do nothing with me'. The officer had then £

made a fatal mistake. He'd let his frustration with ^

the legal system and the cocky criminals who fre- f <

quented it get the better of him, and had apparently *
called Farrow 'a black bastard', causing a further,
much more violent struggle to ensue. We'd hurried

into the interview room at just the moment when *

* fit, *

one of the officers slammed Farrow's head into the
wall. Not hard enough to knock him out, but *
enough to open a nasty cut across his forehead.
'Assault! Assault!' he'd screamed. They're killing 1
me! Get me a fucking brief! Now!' The two arresting
officers had let go, and we'd helped Farrow, \ who was handcuffed behind his back, into one of
the chairs. 'Get my brief/ he'd said, all calm now, £ \ blood oozing out of the wound. 1 want to make a % formal complaint. I ain't saying another word until f
I've seen my brief.' And he didn't. Not a word.

The formal complaint made, all four of us who'd
been in the interview room were later questioned
by representatives of the Police Complaints
Authority, and all of us stuck to the same story: that
Troy Farrow had stumbled during the struggle and
had accidentally knocked his head against the wall. 'j
The arresting officer who Farrow claimed had f '
racially abused him denied the charge but did -^ I
admit calling him a bastard, and I couldn't ^'
comment on this because I hadn't heard the j
exchange. I know that a lot of people would think it
was wrong for me not to say what I saw but at the J

74
time I thought no lasting harm had been done.
Farrow was patched up by the station's doctor and
needed two stitches, and, anyway, it was no more
than he deserved. Plus, I didn't want to be the
whistleblower. The police get enough flak as it is,
and sometimes when you're a copper it does feel
like the whole world's against you, so you don't
want to be putting the knife into your own side. In
'.he end, I was never going to be the one who ruined
a colleague's career (which is what I would have
done) over one second's stupidity and hotheadedness.
I just couldn't justify it to myself.

And, at first, it looked like we might have got
away with it. I don't think the people from the PCA
believed us but it was our word against that of a
Known criminal, and we weren't budging, so
eventually they had little choice but to conclude
that the incident was accidental, and that Farrow
had misheard what the arresting officer had said.

But that wasn't the end of it. A couple of months
later the second arresting uniform, the one who
hadn't pushed Farrow's head into the wall,
admitted what had happened to a bloke in his local
pub after one beer too many, only to find out afterwards
that the bloke was a local investigative
journalist, doing an expose of racism in the Force.
With the conversation recorded, the story appeared
two days later in the local paper, and the case was
suddenly reopened. I found the local media and
even London Tonight parked on my doorstep, asking
me if I was a liar and a racist. I might occasionally
be the one, but I'm definitely not the other. The
whole thing was a nightmare and, although my

75
boss, DCI Renham, a guy I'd worked for for getting
close to five years, fought to keep me in my
position, the tide of attention was overwhelming,
and in the end, with the story refusing to go away,
the Brass were forced to act. Both arresting officers
lost their jobs; the DC, with me, was put back in
uniform; and I was demoted to DC.

It was a shameful episode, the whole thing, and
for a long time I found it difficult to come to terms
with. You see, in my eyes, I hadn't done a lot
wrong. I'd made a mistake but I thought the
punishment far outweighed the crime. I took it out
on my wife, made life difficult for her, and maybe
things between us hadn't been quite as strong as I'd
thought, because three months later, after one
argument too many, we separated. It turned out
she'd been having an affair. I suppose this would
have been understandable were it not for the fact
that the other man happened to be the intrepid
journalist who'd broken the story in the first place.
The cheeky bastard had gone round to interview
her about what effect the story was having on her
and the family, and clearly it was having quite a big
one because somehow, not long afterwards, maybe
even that day, they'd ended up in the sack.

What do you do in that sort of situation? What
can you do? Nothing except pick yourself up, dust
yourself down, and remember that what goes
around comes around. There is justice in this world,
it's just that sometimes it takes a long time before it
bothers to show itself. I had no choice but to cling
to that fact as I gathered up my possessions, put in
for a transfer, and headed north of the river for the

76
first time in my career, ending up at probably the
most controversial station in the entire Met, a
place still haunted by the betrayal of one of its most
senior detectives.

DS Dennis Mime was without doubt Britain's
most corrupt police officer: a valued and longstanding
member of CID by day, a hired killer with
God knows how many corpses to his credit by
night. His shadow still hung over the station like a
noxious cloud, even though it had been close to two
years since his grim secret had been uncovered and
he'd disappeared into thin air. It didn't matter. Time
would be a slow healer here, and there were a
number in CID, including DCI Knox, who'd be
forever tainted by their long association with the station's most infamous son. Mud sticks, and
maybe that was why I'd settled in so easily there.

Since my arrival, I'd rented myself a half-decent
flat in Tufnell Park, and had managed to pull
myself back up to the rank of detective sergeant. A
far cry from the old days, and I was still waiting for
justice (my ex and the journalist were now shacked
up together and my daughter even claimed that she
quite liked him), but things could always have been
worse. I still had a job and, against all the odds, I
still got something out of it.

I left the restaurant at five past ten and headed
round the corner to the Roving Wolf, a pub used by
the station's CID, to see if there was anyone in
there. It was busy, but I spotted a couple of DCs
I knew vaguely standing near the bar and joined
them for a couple of pints. They were both
interested in how the Matthews case was going but

77
I

m

I couldn't tell them a lot. Slowly was the word that jb
about best described it. Conversation drifted on to <*?
other things and I left them at eleven, wandering *~
down onto Upper Street in search of that elusive t
late-night creature, the black cab.

Upper Street was buzzing as usual, its constant *,
stream of pavement cafes and trendy bistros
bustling with custom as people of all ages, and
pretty much every race under the sun, took
advantage of the balmy evening. Strains of jazz, >*
mamba, flamenco and half a dozen other musical
styles drifted out of the open doors and windows of *
a dozen different establishments, giving the place a 4
pleasant, continental feel. It almost felt like being «
on holiday and, for one who'd travelled up Upper
Street a few times back in the 1980s, the transformation
was incredible. Once a barren, dark place of
nasty drinking hovels and little else where only
the adventurous and the foolish came after dark, it *

iB |

had now become Islington's version of Paris's Left 7 j
Bank. If you weren't careful, you might even forget
to watch your back.

Incredibly, I managed to hail a cab near Islington j> Green after only five minutes, which had to be
some sort of record for that time of night. I thought
about heading home but for some reason I wasn't
that tired. Instead, I asked the driver to take me to
the Arcadia nightclub. He gave me a funny look
in the mirror but did as he was told and we made
our way in silence up to the Highbury Corner
roundabout, and then left onto the less continental
and more menacing Hollo way Road. I was hoping
to catch Roy Fowler in residence and collar him for ;