A Fistful of Knuckles

CHAPTER SIX: TOFFEE APPLES

CID, A-division. The strip lights were glaring, and the air was already thick with the heady aroma of Embassy No. 6 and Brut.

Gene Hunt had marshalled his troops. Chewing on a slim panatella, he planted himself squarely in front of Sam and Annie, Chris and Ray, appraising them sceptically with narrowed eyes. He carefully removed the cigar from his lips, shamelessly adjusted the lay of his testicles, and began to speak.

‘Right, playmates. The case of the Black Widow appears, at last, to be making progress. Thanks to the razor-sharp intellect of Sam Tyler we have a lead!’

‘Actually, Guv,’ put in Sam, ‘it was something Annie said that suggested the-’

‘Patsy O’Riordan,’ said Gene, cutting across him. ‘That’s our suspect. The delightful and fragrant Stella from Stella’s Gym mentioned his name in passing, and it seems that he’s currently on our books for knocking the living daylights out of his bird. He’s a boxer — just like Denzil. He’s involved in the world of illegal bare knuckle fights — just like Denzil. He works for Barnard’s Fairground — which, by a staggering coincidence, rolled into town two days before Denzil Obi got fatally thwacked. There’s a strong possibility that he is a character from Denzil’s past with a score to settle. So, summing it all up — we have a victim, a possible suspect, a hint of a motive, and the beginnings of a case. Put ‘em all together and what do you get?’

Silence. Gene scowled.

‘Policework! That’s what you get!’ he barked, gusting cigar smoke from his nostrils. ‘I know it’s first thing in the morning but we can at least pretend to be awake, can’t we?’

As one, his team replied: ‘Yes, Guv.’

‘Yes, Guv,’ Gene echoed back to them. ‘Right then. Policework. Let’s start fitting all the bits and pieces together until they make some sort of sense, shall we? Let’s get the ball rolling with something we know for sure: Denzil Obi was punched to death by a single assailant — an assailant with unusually small fists.’

‘No bigger than this!’ put in Chris, proudly holding up his finger to demonstrate.

‘No bigger than that,’ continued Gene. ‘Three inches across the knuckles. We know this from the wounds on Obi’s body. If we can match the size of Patsy O’Riordan’s fists to the size of them wounds, we’re a big step closer to establishing him as the killer.’

‘More than a big step, I reckon,’ said Ray. ‘We’d have him by the short ‘n’ curlies.’

Sam shook his head. ‘Not necessarily. Matching the size of O’Riordan’s hands to the wounds on Denzil Obi’s body is a good link, but it’s not something we can guarantee will stand up in court. There’s lawyers who’ll blow evidence like that out of the water.’

‘Balls to the lawyers!’ scoffed Ray.

‘No, Ray, not balls to the lawyers,’ Sam protested. ‘It’s going into court with an attitude like that that leads to cases falling apart. We need a solid motive, we need as much hard evidence as we can get, we need witness statements, we need …’

Ray was making yackety-yack gestures with his hand.

Sam hardened his voice: ‘Ray, this isn’t the bloody playground. We’re police officers. And a man is dead. If we want to nail Obi’s killer, we need to play this by the book, build up a real case, cover all our bases.’

‘Hate to say it but Tyler’s right,’ said Gene. ‘We’ve all seen cases chucked out on a poxy technicality. It’s not a nice feeling. And I want a nice feeling, you hear what I’m saying? I want that nice, warm feeling in the pit of my bollocks that comes with a rock solid conviction and a right brutal bastard going away for life. And this is why.’

He held up the photograph from Annie’s file that showed Tracy Porter’s battered face. Chris winced. Ray slowly shook his head in disgust.

‘That’s how he treats his missus,’ said Gene. ‘She’s too frightened to speak up — so we’ll be speaking up on her behalf. We’re going to nail this he-man — we’re going to nail him right to the flamin’ wall. We are going to put a case together tighter than a tadpole’s fanny.’

‘Right behind you in this, Guv,’ said Chris.

Ray glanced at Sam, then at Gene, and at last said: ‘Me too, Guv.’

‘One big ‘appy family, then,’ intoned Gene. ‘Right. First up, we need to pin down O’Riordan’s location.’

‘That’s not too difficult,’ said Annie. ‘He’s at Terry Barnard’s Fairground. The fair won’t move on until after the weekend.’

‘Okay, so he’s at the fair — but where at the fair?’ said Gene. ‘Selling tickets? Driving the ghost train? Cleaning the puke out of the waltzers? We need to track him down, so tonight we’ll go out there and find him. And once we’ve found him, we’ll get a good look at his fists to make sure they fit.’

‘Get a look at his fists?’ asked Chris. ‘How?’

‘I don’t give a penguin’s frozen pecker how, Christopher — be creative — use your bloody initiative — just find a way of making damn sure that his fists ain’t no bigger than three inches, understand?’

‘No, Guv, I don’t,’ Chris frowned. ‘Why don’t we just pull Patsy in and measure his fists here at the station?’

‘Because Patsy O’Riordan is a gyppo,’ Gene said, leaning forward and spelling it out for him. ‘A Pikey. A rambling ne’er-do-well.’

‘What the guv’s saying is he’s a traveller, Chris,’ clarified Sam, but nobody was listening.

‘If Patsy gets wind we’re looking to collar him, he’s free to disappear back into the wild blue yonder,’ Gene went on. ‘So I don’t want him nicked, collared, or so much as spooked until we’ve got evidence enough to charge him. Do you understand now, Christopher?’

‘Yes, Guv.’

‘Super-duper. We all understand what we’ve got to do then? Locate the suspect, establish a link to the victim, and bit by bit put together a case so watertight Ironside would shit his chair trying to contest it.’

‘How are we going to do that, Guv?’ asked Sam. ‘How are we going to shore up this case? Any ideas?’

Gene raised himself to his full height, exhaled a plume of panatella smoke, and narrowed his eyes: ‘I’ve always got ideas, Samuel.’

‘Such as?’

‘Though the wheels of the Gene Jeanie might grind slowly they grind exceeding chuffin’ small.’

After a bemused pause, Ray said: ‘Do what, Guv?’

‘I think that was the guv’s way of saying he’s working on it,’ said Sam. ‘First things first, then. Let’s identify and locate Patsy O’Riordan and see if we can somehow get a chance to measure his fists. Should be interesting.’

‘If this O’Riordan feller works at the fair,’ piped up Chris, ‘then does that mean we all get to go? You know, to the fair and that?’

‘It does indeed, Chris,’ said Gene.

Chris’s face lit up.

Gene went on: ‘When it gets dark, we’ll mingle with the regular punters. Keep a low profile. Act natural. Don’t draw attention to yourselves.’

‘Guv,’ Chris asked eagerly, ‘can we, like, go on the rides and that? I mean, you know, to look natural.’

‘You can take a slash in the hall of bleedin’ mirrors for all I care, Christopher, just as long as we pin down O’Riordan and get a the measure of his fists.’

Gene slammed down the photograph of Tracy Porter’s lumpen, brutalized face. Next to it, he slapped a forensic photo of what remained of Denzil Obi.

‘Keep these images in mind,’ he growled. ‘That’s what we’re doing this for. That’s what this case is all about. We’re putting a stop to this.’

Everybody looked silently at the ghastly photographs — even Chris, who was getting desperately excited at the prospect of going to the fair.

‘We know the victims, Guv, but what about O’Riordan himself?’ said Ray. ‘How will we recognize him? What’s he look like?’

‘Therein lies the fun and games,’ said Gene. ‘We don’t have a picture or even a description, so we’ll have to use our innate animal cunning to track him down. That’s what we get paid our pennies for. One way or another, he’ll be around that fairground, and that means, gentlemen and lady, we — will — find him. Understood?’

‘Yes, Guv.’

‘I didn’t catch that.’

‘Yes, Guv!’

‘Splendid! Right then. I’ll see you all tonight at Terry Barnard’s. Dress warmly. Treat yourselves to a toffee apple. And don’t buy the donuts — I’ve seen how they make the holes.’

It was night, and Terry Barnard’s Fairground appeared as a crazy chaos of lights and music whirling frantically in the darkness. Sam and Annie arrived together, meeting up on the edge of the open ground where the fair had established itself.

‘When was the last time you went to the fair?’ Annie asked.

‘When I was so-high,’ said Sam.

‘Brings back memories, doesn’t it.’

Sam shrugged. He should have felt nostalgia, but the swirling, coloured lights and the blaring music unsettled him. The screams of excited youngsters on the rollercoaster made him think of hell. He shook his head to free it from such stupid thoughts.

‘Come on,’ he said, taking Annie’s hand. ‘I know we’re supposed to be working, but let’s think of this as a sort of ‘second date’ — what do you say?’

Her answer was to plant a kiss on Sam’s cheek. Nothing spectacular, almost sisterly — but it worked wonders. Once again, for all his fears and nameless terrors, Annie had it in her to bring the warmth and sunshine back into Sam’s soul. He tightened his grip on her hand and together they trudged across the muddy ground towards the fair.

The place was alive with colour and music and people and noise. Kids bundled up in duffel coats and snorkel parkas where cramming onto the ghost train, whooshing down the helter-skelter, getting pinned to the walls of the spinning centrifuge cage. A precarious rollercoaster rattled unsteadily overhead. Beneath a sagging tarpaulin, Sam spotted rows of arcade games — old style one-armed bandits, metal claws that gripped but then dropped cheap toys, table football, glass cases containing masses of moving ten-pence pieces that forever threatened to tumble out for the player to gather up but which defied gravity and refused to fall.

Further on, the waltzer was hurtling round and around, carrying its cargo of screamers and shriekers.

‘Any sign of Chris on that thing?’ asked Sam, peering at the faces as they flashed by. ‘I bet you a tenner he’s a waltzer man.’

‘Then that’s a tenner you owe me,’ said Annie, and she pointed. Chris was sitting astride a painted horse on a sedate and slow-moving carousel, swinging his legs gleefully and shoving his face into a huge cloud of pink candyfloss.

‘Macho man!’ Annie called out to him as he went by.

Shocked at being discovered, Chris looked up sharply, candyfloss sticking to his nose and eyebrows.

‘I’m on reconnaissance!’ he protested as his painted horse carried him away.

Sam laughed — and then his laughter froze as he caught sight of the Test Card Girl riding along the carousel just behind Chris. She turned her pale face towards him as she bobbed gracefully by.

‘Come on,’ said Sam, tugging Annie’s hand and leading her away. ‘Let’s find this thug O’Riordan.’

They threaded their way through the bustling crowds. Sam expected to see the Test Card Girl again at any moment — taking money at the ticket office for the ghost train, selling toffee apples, going round and round on the centrifuge, perhaps skipping by with a cluster of jet black helium balloons in her hand — but he saw no sign of her now. Perhaps he had just imagined her riding on the carousel.

No. I didn’t imagine her. She was there — popping up like a recurring nightmare yet again … Damn it, will I never be rid of her?

Sparks flashed and crackled overhead. Sam flinched — then relaxed. It was just the electric current feeding the dodgems.

‘Hey,’ smiled Annie, nudging Sam’s arm. ‘No prizes for guessing who’s on the bumper cars.’

Gene was cramming himself into one of the cars. Across from him, Ray was doing the same.

‘In their heads, they’re about twelve,’ said Annie.

‘That’s being generous,’ said Sam.

Dads were settling into the cars with their kids, and granddads were settling in with their grandkids.

‘I hope Ray and the guv don’t get too aggressive,’ said Annie. ‘It’s for families.’

‘It’s only the dodgems, Annie. How aggressive can they possibly get?’

The ride’s compere hollered over the speaker system: ‘Three! Two! One! And awaaaaaay they goooo!’ Instantly, Gene’s car sprang forward, broadsiding a young couple with surprising force. Ray slammed his car into the back of one carrying an old man and his nervous grandson, barking abuse when the old man told him to take it easy, son.

‘I think the guv’s taking it a bit serious,’ said Annie, as they watched Gene swerve and ram, utilizing his police driving skills to devastating effect. A child screamed, a father raised his voice in angry protest, and Gene silenced them both with a succession of ferocious head-on collisions. A kid in a bobble hat lost his nerve, leapt from his car and fled the ride altogether, weeping openly.

‘I feel I should intervene,’ said Sam. And at that moment, on the other side of the dodgems, he glimpsed a spider tattoo moving past in the coloured lights. ‘Annie! Look!’

‘What? Where?’

‘I saw him, Annie — it was Spider, the fella from the gym. What’s he doing here?’

‘Maybe he likes fairgrounds.’

‘Or maybe he’s more interested in finding Patsy O’Riordan.’

‘And what would Spider want with him?’

‘Only one way to find out.’

They were pushing their way through the crowds, trying to find Spider. Sam barged his way through a mob of teenagers — ‘Oi! Watch it mate!’ — and glared frantically about. Suddenly, he saw Spider — and Spider saw him. They made eye contact, stared at each other for a moment — and then Spider bolted. Sam raced after him, shoving and shouldering his way through the crush. Spider ducked and weaved a few yards ahead of him.

‘There he is!’ Sam called to Annie … but Annie was nowhere to be seen, separated from him and swallowed up by the crowd.

Sam pressed on, following Spider out of the crowd and under the rickety framework of the rollercoaster itself. Above them was a crazy latticework of scaffold pipes and rough planks. Stray beams of coloured light filtered in, dappling them in a shifting haze of red and orange and blue and yellow.

‘Spider! Wait up! It’s okay, I only want to …’

Suddenly, Spider span round, his eyes blazing, his face fierce. Up went his fists, one tucked beneath his chin, the other circling the air just in front of his face. A livid red light fell across him from the flashing fairground bulbs; just for a moment, he seemed to be spattered in blood.

Sam took a step back, his hands raised palms outward.

‘Whoa there, Spider. Easy. I just want to speak to you …’

Spider stayed exactly as he was, poised to fight. The only thing that changed was the colour of the light that dappled him. It went from blood red to electric blue, then to a flickering lemon yellow, then to a slowly pulsing pale green.

‘You remember me?’ said Sam, keeping very still, determined not to provoke him into lashing out with those lethal fists of his. ‘I came to the gym. My DCI behaved like a dick, but I’m different. All I want is to talk to you. Please — Spider — put your fists down.’

The framework of scaffolding about them lurched and rattled. Overhead, the rollercoaster thundered by on its tracks, screaming and whooping as it went. The structure shook, the planks creaked, the feeble-looking blocks and wedges upon which the whole edifice stood groaned and shifted.

‘Jesus, this place is a death trap!’ Sam muttered, flinching as if he expected it all to come crashing down on top of them. ‘Spider — please — let’s talk, but not here, yeah?’

‘Ain’t nothing to talk about,’ Spider grunted at him through gritted teeth. He kept his boxer’s fists in place. ‘You want to nick me? Then go ahead and try.’

‘Spider, I told you, I just want to talk. I’m a police officer pursuing a murder — you’re a close personal acquaintance of the victim — it’s hardly surprising that I’m going to want to talk to you, is it! Now please — put your fists down.’

Sam waited, giving Spider the time and space to make up his own mind what to do next. The rollercoaster rocketed overhead once again, rattling every scaffold tube and straining every plank.

Slowly, Spider relaxed his pose.

‘Thank you!’ sighed Sam. ‘Now come on. Let’s get out of here before this shit-heap comes down around our ears. I’ll buy you a toffee apple somewhere and we can talk.’

‘No. You want to talk, we talk here.’

‘I’d really prefer we went for that toffee apple, Spider. It doesn’t feel very safe here.’

‘You don’t feel safe?!’ spat Spider, sneering. ‘Is that what you’re used to feeling, is it? Safe?! Safe and ruddy sound, is that what you’re used to?’

‘We spoke to Stella from the gym,’ said Sam. ‘She told us things have been tough for you.’

‘Not so tough as they’ve been for Denzil lately,’ Spider growled back.

‘That’s why I’m here. I want to find out who killed him.’

‘And so you came straight after me.’

Spider’s hands were at his sides now, but as he walked slowly towards Sam he gave off an aura of menace and violence even more overbearing than when he had raised his fists. Stray shafts of coloured light fell across the spider tattoo on his neck, bathing it in all the hues of the rainbow. Sam forced himself not to give ground. The insane lights filtering through from above shifted and changed, spraying them both with shimmering specks of restless purple.

‘Knock it off, Spider,’ Sam said, sounding tougher than he felt. ‘I just need to talk. I’m not accusing you of anything.’

‘I don’t care what you think,’ breathed Spider, positioning himself directly in front of Sam, eyeball to eyeball, almost nose to nose. ‘This business, it ain’t nothing to do with you.’

‘Grow up, Spider.’ Sam maintained eye contact. He refused to be intimidated, not by Spider’s overbearing presence, not by the awful spider tattoo across his throat, not even by the rickety rollercoaster that went crashing by once more, setting everything creaking and rattling. ‘Why’d you come to the fairground tonight, eh? Who were you looking for?’

‘No one.’

‘You were looking for Patsy O’Riordan, weren’t you.’

‘I said I weren’t looking for no one.’

‘You think Patsy killed Denzil. Don’t you. And that’s why you came here.’

‘How am I going to persuade you to keep your nose out of this business, eh?’

Menacingly, Spider raised a fist slowly and laid it against Sam’s chin. The span of his knuckles was huge, more like a sledgehammer than a human fist. Far, far bigger than the three-inch knuckle span of the man who beat Denzil Obi to death in his grotty little bedsit.

‘Denzil Obi was beaten to death,’ said Sam. ‘His assailant had small hands. Much smaller than yours, Spider.’

‘That won’t stop you pinning it on me, though, will it?’

‘I’m not here to pin anything on anyone. I’m here to find the man who killed Denzil Obi. And I think, Spider, that makes two of us.’

Without warning, Spider shoved Sam away. Stumbling backward, Sam fell against a set of spindly scaffold tubes. He could feel these slender metal rods thrumming dangerously with the fierce, wild energy of the rollercoaster they bore.

Spider lashed out, but instead of aiming at Sam, he drove his right fist into the scaffold supports. Then he did the same with his left fist.

‘Spider! Jesus! For God’s sake!’

Slam! Slam! Spider powered his huge fists, one after the other, into the feeble framework that held everything up.

Sam grabbed at him, trying to pull this madman away before he got them, and the screaming thrill-seekers tearing by overhead, all killed.

But Spider turned fiercely on him, his eyes blazing: ‘What’s the matter? Not feeling safe? Eh? You frightened them poles are going to give out? You frightened of what might come down on your head any second?’ For a moment, his words were drowned by the clamour and roar of the rollercoaster. He grabbed Sam by the lapels of his jacket. ‘Now you know how it feels!’

Spider’s throat was working convulsively, working the legs of the spider tattoo, giving the ink an illusion of life. He seemed on the verge of tears.

This man is having some sort of breakdown, Sam thought. All he’s ever known is violence and the threat of violence and a hand-to-mouth career made out of violence. And with Denzil dead, he’s lost his only friend in the whole world. No — it’s more than that. He’s lost his only connection with humanity. He’s completely alone. He has nothing. Nothing — except revenge.

‘I won’t lie to you, Spider. Right now I’m scared.’

Spider sneered at him.

But Sam added: ‘I’m scared you’re going to do something really stupid. I’m scared you’re going to go gunning for Patsy O’Riordan, and that you’re going to force us, Spider, force us to arrest you for it. Damn it, Spider, I want Denzil’s murderer behind bars, not you! Think, Spider! You want justice for Denzil? Then work with us! Together, we can nail the killer. We can nail him, Spider, so he goes down for thirty years to life. That’s justice — not you running around like a one-man lynch mob. Help us, Spider. Help me.’

The next thing Sam knew, he was being thrown roughly aside. Spider bolted back out into the crowd. By the time Sam found his feet and set off after him, he was gone.

‘Sam! There you are!’

It was Annie, running him to, panting.

‘Did Spider go racing by you just then, Annie?’

‘If he did, I missed him. Sam, are you all right?’

‘You didn’t see where he went? Damn it, we’ve lost him!’

‘We’ve lost him, Sam — but look who we’ve found instead.’

She indicated ahead of them at a crudely painted sign suspended above the crowd. It read:

YOUR CHANCE TO FACE

THE LEGENDARY BARE-KNUCKLE FIGHTER

* * * PATSY ‘HAMMER HANDS’ O’RIORDAN * * *

LAST ONE ROUND, WIN TEN POUND!!!

ARE YOU MAN ENOUGH????

An eager crowd of young men jostled around the makeshift boxing ring, keen to impress their mates and girlfriends, trying to nerve themselves to take on the challenge and face Patsy ‘Hammer Hands’ O’Riordan. Sam and Annie joined the crush, straining to catch sight of Patsy himself. At first, there was no sign of him — the ring was empty — but then, to a great cheer from the crowd, a rather scrawny young man leapt up, stripped off his shirt, and began strutting about, posturing and posing.

‘Is that him?’ asked Annie. ‘It’s not what I’d imagined.’

But it wasn’t him. Patsy appeared moments later, ducking under the ropes, stepping into the ring, and rising himself up to full height. He presented himself arrogantly to the crowd.

‘Chuffin’ Nora …’ murmured the shirtless young man in the ring.

‘Flamin’ ‘eck …’ breathed Annie.

‘My God …’ whispered Sam.

Everybody stared.