Calibre

2

Sergeant Brant was in the canteen. Slung over the back of his chair was a Driza-Bone jacket. He was licking the chocolate off a Club Milk; the sounds he made were deliberately loud, exaggerated, and having the desired effect. Cops at nearby tables were aware of him, powerless to shout:

‘For fucksakes!’

Brant was a pig, worked at it. He was heavily built with a black Irish face that wasn’t so much lived in as squatted upon. He was wearing a very expensive suit that whispered:

‘Serious wedge.’

He had numerous schemes running, all illegal, that kept him in a style ill-suited to a sergeant in the SE London Met. The brass knew he was dirty, he knew they knew, but proof remained elusive.

Superintendent Brown had tried for years to shaft him.

Unsuccessfully.

Brant was deeply tan. Another feature not common to cops. He’d wrangled his way onto a Police Exchange Scheme in Australia and spent two weeks sydney. To annoy his immediate superior, Chief Inspector Roberts, he now littered his speech with Strine, Oz slang. Roberts, seriously irritated by Brant’s chocola, moved his own tea aside, said:

‘We better get a move on.’

Brant now wished he’d dunked the last of his Club Milk in his tea, few things matched the melting chocolate rush. He reached in his jacket, took out a pack of Peter Jackson, a twenty-five box, as is the norm in Oz.

Plus a battered Zippo. All over the canteen were decals, roaring: SMOKING VERBOTEN.

Well, not in Kraut but with that tone. Roberts sighed as Brant cranked the lighter, an old inscription on the side, barely legible: 1968.

Brant smiled, not his usual wolverine but something near regret, shrugged it off, said:

‘I tell you, sir, the sheilas in Oz were seriously stacked.’

The alliteration was no accident, he’d worked on it, tuned to gain max vexation.

All in the timing. Whatever else, Brant knew the value of timing. Roberts sighed, went:

‘When are you going to get over Australia?’

Brant feigned hurt then:

‘With all due respect, sir, you don’t get over Oz. Ask Bill Bryson.’

Roberts could give a toss who Bryson was, still it was a change if not an improvement that for once Brant wasn’t pushing Ed McBain. The old Penguin editions, the Eighty-seventh Precinct mysteries, Brant had owned them all, every blessed one. Till The Umpire destroyed them. An old case, never closed. Lately, Brant was obsessed with writing, fancied himself an English Joseph Wambaugh, would go:

‘Money in crime…’

Pause.

Big delivery:

‘Writing.’

Then the previous McBain, Fat Ollie’s Book, had accelerated Brant’s vision of the cop/author. He’d even bought The Writers’ and Artists’ Year Book, was trawling through agents and likely publishers.

Roberts asked:

‘Falls back yet?’

A black WPC. The wet dream of the nick, her star had spectacularly dipped. Suspected of offing a cop killer, a spell in rehab, a near lethal coke habit, and a lesbian fling with a bomber. She was barely clinging to her job. If she’d been white, she’d been gone. Brant dropped his cig in the cup, heard the sizzle, said:

‘They got her on that schools gig.’

The very bottom of the Met barrel. No, worse, out-side the barrel, trying to reach the bottom. Certain assignments:

Traffic

Railton Road nights

Press liason

Were regarded as shite, but going into classrooms, telling apprentice muggers about the role of the police (as if they didn’t know the deal… cops beat on you, run your ass ragged). This gig was regarded as the last stop before dismissal. In fact it was dismissal, bar the shouting. Consigned to that dark side of the moon too was PC McDonald, once the Super’s golden boy and potential hatchet-man. He’d seriously fucked up and got shot into the bargain.

McDonald and Falls had a history, none of it good. They didn’t totally hate each other, but it was in the zone. Falls had hit on a shit pile of money and sent some of it to McDonald, anonymously, but he didn’t seem to have improved in any noticeable fashion. The other cops had a lottery going as to which would crack first. The pool was a healthy?500 and growing. If they both jacked, there was a double-indemnity clause.

Brant asked:

‘You put some money on?’

‘On Falls folding?’

A little alliteration himself, it was contagious. Roberts brushed at his suit, an old number from his married days and not wearing well, said:

‘I’m the Gov, how’d it be if I was betting on my squad jacking.’

Brant smiled, went:

‘It’d be smart.’

They were currently tracking a stolen-car ring and pressure was on as the superintendent’s Lexus had been taken. A number of false leads had increased the man’s ire. One of Brant’s snitches now claimed to have real information. Brant’s ‘informers’… finks, had a lethal record of getting wasted. The current one was still hanging in. Named Alcazar, known as Caz, he had a history of hanging-paper, dealing in dodgy travellers cheques. Various times he was from:

Puerto Rico

Honduras

South America.

What made him stand out from the herd was, he’d never done time.

He was short, with black hair, a dancer’s body, and hooded eyes.

He was from Croydon.

And man, he could dance: flamenco salsa jive la Macarena.

His choice of weapon was a stiletto, pearl-handled of course. He put oceans of Brylcreem in his hair and smoked Ducados like a good ‘un.

What you might call a fully rounded individual. He wore a huge, gold medallion of ‘Our Lady of Guadalupe.’

Roberts asked:

‘Who’s this source we’re meeting?’

Brant gave him the full wattage of his smile, said:

‘You’ll like him; he’s a dancer.’