A White Arrest

Policing, like cricket, has hard and fast rules. Play fast, play hard

Picture this. Brant is seven years old. The Peckham estate he lives on is already turning to shit. A Labour legacy of cheap contemporary housing is exactly that; Brant has been fighting. But he’s learning, learning not to cry and NEVER to back down. At home his mother is bathing his cuts and beatings. He doesn’t hear her. Dixon of Dock Green is on the telly: ‘Evening all,’ and Brant whispers a reply. Z Cars flames the call and ten years later he answers it fully. Through the years he’ll wade through Hill Street Blues right along with homicide. But they don’t give him the rush. His is an English version of the bobby and for some perverse reason he finds that Ed McBain in the police procedural comes closest to the way it should have been. Long after he’d dismissed Dixon as a wanker, his heart still bore the imprint of Dock Green. In Brant’s words, television had gone the way of Peckham. Right down the shitter.

Brant was mid-quiz, deliberately misquoting: ‘and the herring shall follow the fleet.’

A constable sneered: ‘That’s too easy — it’s that wanker, the kick-boxer Cantona.’

Brant tried not to show his dismay. He’d been sure it was a winner. A clutch of uniforms was gathered round in the canteen. He said: ‘OK wise-arse, try this: “Do you care now?”’

The group laughed, shouted: ‘De Niro to Wesley Snipes in The Fan.’

Free tickets had been left at the station. Brant stood up in disgust. ‘You bastards have been studying. It’s meant to be off the cuff.’

He marched away resolving never to play again. Near collided with a galloping Roberts who shouted: ‘Another one, they’ve gone and done it again.’

‘The Umpire?’

‘No, the other lunatics — the lamppost outfit. C’mon, c’mon, let’s roll.’

Outside the library in Brixton, the dangling corpse was still smouldering. Brant asked: ‘Got a light?’

Roberts gave a deep sigh: ‘This will hang us too.’

Brant nudged him, asked: ‘Did you read McBain yet?’

‘Oh sure, like I’ve had time for that.’

Unfazed, Brant launched: ‘The 87th Precinct, there’s two homicide dicks, Monaghan and Monroe. At the murder scenes they crack a graveyard humour. In Black Horses the — ’

‘Shut up! Jeez, are you completely nuts? Anyone know who this victim might be?’

The uniformed sergeant said: ‘Brian Short, twenty-eight years old, dope dealer, rapist, lives on Railton Road.’

Both Roberts and Brant gaped, gave a collective ‘what?’

The sergeant repeated it. Roberts said: ‘Now that’s what I call impressive police work. In fact it’s miraculous.’

Brant looked at the corpse, asked: ‘Fuckin’ hell, you can tell all that from here?’

The sergeant indicated the item he held, said: ‘It says so here.’

‘Here?’

‘Yeah, on the back of this photo.’

‘Hey, gimme that.’ Brant looked at it and smiled. ‘How did you get his snappy, Sarge?’

It was pinned to this notice.’

‘“E is for EXTREME measures”.’

The police had come prepared this time and two ladders were used to bring the body down. The medical examiner arrived, hummed and hawed, then whipped off his glasses and said: ‘This was not a boating accident.’

Brant laughed out loud. Roberts said: ‘Wanna share the joke fellas or shall I just continue with my thumb up my arse?’

Intriguing as the picture was, Brant decided not to elaborate and said: ‘It’s from Jaws, sir. Richard Dreyfus said it.’

A press photographer grabbed a series of shots before Roberts cried: ‘Get him outta here!’

The evening paper ran a full photo of them apparently laughing delightedly over the body. The caption read: WHAT’S THE JOKE, OFFICERS?

And the accompanying article gave them a bollocking of ferocity. Burned them, so to speak.