City of Dreadful Night

THREE

T he debrief was a joke. It was past midnight when it started and just before one when it ended, and in between Sarah Gilchrist heard nothing of value. She sat with Philippa Franks at the far end of the conference table, Harry Potter sitting upright on the other side of Franks, and watched in appalled fascination as Charlie Foster, the silver commander, struggled with a debriefing sheet he’d clearly never seen before. She could smell his fear, rank right down the table.

Philip Macklin sat stiffly beside Foster, eyes fixed on his tightly clasped hands. Macklin had a dual role – gold commander and the main representative of Force Command. Sheena Hewitt, the Assistant Chief Constable in overall charge of operations, also represented Force Command.

Gilchrist liked Hewitt. She didn’t take any shit from the men but she was also determinedly feminine. Hewitt was in her forties but still wore her hair long. Gilchrist wouldn’t have, but she recognized that Hewitt was pretty enough to carry it off.

Hewitt was wearing casual trousers and a silk blouse – she’d been having dinner with her husband in The Ginger Man when she’d been summoned. She’d grimaced when she entered the room, walked to the window and opened it as wide as it would go. Foster wasn’t the only one who was giving off an odour.

Hewitt looked round the table from one officer to the next.

Nobody was saying much, which is why it was a joke and why Hewitt was irate. The unit had closed ranks. Nobody admitted to firing the first shot although several officers admitted to joining in after that. Their weapons had been tagged and ammunition counted. However, since no record was usually kept in the armoury of who took which weapon and how much ammunition was taken out, that wasn’t going to be very useful.

Any kind of auditing to do with the armoury had long been abandoned. There hadn’t even been an official armourer for the past two years. Savings.

Gilchrist watched the big man with the missing teeth she’d encountered in the kitchen in Milldean. His name was Donald Connolly and he was based at Haywards Heath. The smirking man, who was sitting diagonally across the table from her, was Darren White, also at Haywards Heath. Finch was beside him, slumped in his seat, sick as a dog.

Connolly, biceps bulging, was sitting to the left of her, his body angled towards Foster and Macklin. At one point, sensing her stare, he turned and looked back with hard eyes.

She was the first to turn away. The man’s apparent hostility could be put down to the same prejudice against women officers that Finch shared. Or it could be something else.

The fate of the object in the dead man’s hand in the kitchen was niggling at her. She hadn’t done a proper check under the cupboards but she hadn’t been able to see anything. She’d checked the evidence room before she’d come here. Nothing had been deposited in connection with the man killed in the kitchen. She was wondering if, against all procedures, any of the three policemen who’d joined her in the kitchen had taken whatever the object was.

Macklin wasn’t saying much of anything. Gilchrist guessed why. He’d already pulled up the drawbridge. He’d authorized this operation. He’d made a judgement on information he’d apparently received from DC Edwards, who in turn had received it from his snitch. Macklin was responsible. And she guessed that therefore all he was thinking was how to save himself.

As silver commander, Foster had run this woebegone operation. He too was in deep shit. Gilchrist thought him a good man, a moral man. She knew he would feel ultimately responsible. His sense of guilt was palpable. Five deaths were a heavy burden for any conscience to bear. Whilst he was clearly frustrated with everybody’s reluctance to speak, he didn’t seem to have the energy to take it further.

It was left to the increasingly exasperated Hewitt to be the heavy. She brought her palms down heavily on the table.

‘Jesus, we’re on your side. Talk to us and maybe we can figure out what to do. When the Hampshire police arrive they’re not going to be anywhere near as gentle.’

Her eyes swept the table. They stopped on Gilchrist.

‘Gilchrist?’

‘I was downstairs, ma’am. I heard the shots. We had checked the ground floor rooms and they were secure so my colleagues went upstairs to support the other unit.’

‘But all the rooms weren’t secure, were they?’ Hewitt looked at the notes in front of her. ‘This man appeared…’

‘It was a cupboard under the stairs. The door was concealed. Ma’am, I should mention that he had something in his hand.’

‘What?’

Gilchrist flicked a look at Connolly, White and Finch. They were all staring at the table.

‘I thought it was a weapon at first but after I wasn’t sure.’

‘You didn’t examine it when he had been shot?’

‘It fell from his hand and – well – ma’am – I couldn’t immediately locate it without contaminating the crime scene.’

‘I’ll make a note for the scene of crime officers. Thank you, Detective Sergeant.’

Hewitt turned to Foster.

‘We don’t know who any of these people are? Do we at least know if one of them is Bernard Grimes?’

‘Not yet, ma’am,’ Foster said.

‘Only two of them were carrying identification,’ Potter said. ‘We have their names and OPS1 is having them traced. But none are known to us, that’s correct, ma’am.’

OPS1 was the designated title for whichever high-ranking officer was on shift in charge of the Operations Room. The Operations Room was the focal point of police operations each day and night.

‘Where’s DC Edwards?’ Macklin said. ‘He should be here. It was his informant who started this off.’

Nobody answered. Macklin shuffled papers whilst Foster stumbled through the remaining questions on his sheet.

The ‘hot debrief’ petered out ten minutes later.

‘All of you are off-duty as of now,’ Hewitt said, rising.

‘Suspended, ma’am?’ Foster said.

‘Pending an enquiry, it’s inappropriate for any of you to continue with your duties. But hold yourself available for questioning from tomorrow by the investigating officers from the Hampshire police force.’ She looked round the table. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, this is about as bad as it gets. It does you no credit to avoid saying what exactly happened in that house.’

She looked at Macklin.

‘Philip, perhaps we could use your room for our meeting?’

He nodded, his face grim. He’d rather be anywhere but here. Hewitt nodded at the room and followed Macklin out. Those who remained avoided each other’s eyes. As Connolly, the big man, rose, Sarah leant over. She could smell his aftershave. Sweet. Noxious.

‘Excuse me.’

He ignored her. She reached out and gripped his bicep.

‘Excuse me.’

He looked at her hand on his arm.

‘I’m spoken for but I’m sure you’ll find one of the other lads willing.’ He sniggered. ‘Try Finch – he isn’t too fussy, I hear.’

They both looked over at Finch shambling out of the room with Darren White, the other Haywards Heath officer, stretching up to whisper in his ear.

‘Did you remove evidence from the kitchen?’

‘What evidence?’

‘Whatever it was he’d had in his hand. Judging from the footprints in the blood, it looked as if someone had been moving about in the kitchen.’

He picked up her hand as if it were a dead thing and removed it from his arm.

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ he said, turning for the door.

‘He had something in his hand.’

Connolly put his hand in his pocket and continued walking.

‘So have I. D’you want to hold it?’

‘I saw it,’ Sarah said.

‘Big, isn’t it?’

‘In the man’s hand.’

‘Well, I didn’t.’ He nodded at Finch’s retreating back. ‘And nor did Finch. Or White.’ He looked back at her. ‘So there’s only your word for it.’

I’m not a pessimistic man, rather the reverse. My optimism used to anger my wife, Molly, especially when she herself was plumbing the depths. She would call me Pollyanna, her voice cold and jeering.

‘Only people with no imaginations are optimists,’ she snarled at me more than once.

Getting through the days after the shooting at Milldean tested my optimism. These were probably the worst days of my life. Worse than when Molly and I later split up – I leave you to decide what that says about me.

That night Phil, my driver, dropped off Jack Lawrence, my press officer, back in Brighton then drove me over the Downs to the little hamlet where Molly and I had settled four years before. I always liked the idea of leaving Brighton behind. Although my remit covered all Sussex, there was something about Brighton that seemed to stand for the venality and the criminality of the whole region.

Leaving it, coming over into the pure country air of the Downs, allowed me to leave the job behind more effectively than anything. When I got home Molly was already asleep. I tiptoed up the stairs, put my head round our bedroom door and listened to her heavy breathing. I could smell the alcohol.

I went back down the stairs, poured myself a brandy and went out on to the terrace. I could see the nimbus of the city’s light pollution across the top of the Downs. I imagined it getting brighter and brighter as Brighton’s pollutants threatened to spill over the South Downs into the countryside beyond.

I wondered if there was any way I could save my job. I thought about phoning Simpson again. I wondered how bad tomorrow would be.

The new area police headquarters were on the border between Brighton and Hove, down on the seafront. Given the traffic along the seafront, it was a ridiculous place for any kind of rapid response policing but I enjoyed the view from my window. I preferred bad weather days to good – watching the waves crashing over the groynes and spilling on to the promenade energized me.

I love Brighton. OK, I know the city is officially Brighton and Hove since the councils merged but that’s just a sop to Hove civic pride. Although there are restaurants and bars springing up in Hove, Brighton is the engine that drives the city.

I love Brighton for its energy and for its odd mix of people – a mix that, frankly, is a big policing headache. The students from Brighton and Sussex Universities clubbing until dawn, and the gays and lesbians who live in the city or come to visit in droves – all prey for any local gang, mugger or rapist. The unemployed kids on the estates around the city. The druggies, a danger to themselves and others. The crooks who come down from London at the weekends to have a lavish time on a strictly cash-only basis. The prostitutes. And, of course, the local crime families. There were two main ones – the Cuthberts and the Donaldsons – although a man called John Hathaway was rumoured to be the town’s crime kingpin.

There was tension in the air when I strode through reception and the open-plan ground-floor office. I clocked covert and overt glances as I passed. At the rear of the building I jogged up the stairs to my office.

Winston Hart, the chair of the Police Authority, had been phoning my mobile during my journey but I’d ignored his calls. He was a pompous prat of a local councillor from Lewes, one of many academics from the local universities involved in local politics. He’d left four messages with Rachael, my secretary.

I eased behind my desk and looked across at the painting on the opposite wall. I’d bought it ten years ago when I could little afford the expense. I loved the mystery of it – a man and a woman sitting at a table, both gazing at a flower she was holding in her hand. A pot of the same flowers behind them on the window sill. The colours were bright – a yellow wall, red chairs, the man’s green coat, her black hair. But what was its story? That was the mystery.

I sighed and called Hart. Our conversation was brief.

‘I have utter faith in my officers,’ I said. ‘Whatever happened was, I’m sure, justified. I’ve asked Hampshire Police Authority to carry out a full investigation but I’m confident it will confirm my belief.’

Hart had a spindly voice and always sounded tetchy.

‘Do you know exactly what happened?’ he said.

‘I know enough about my officers to stand by them.’

When Hart and I had finished speaking I buzzed through to Macklin.

‘And?’

‘We’re still not clear, sir,’ he said. ‘The statements we took last night leave a lot unexplained. And we can’t locate DC Edwards. It was his man who gave us the tip about Grimes staying in that house. We think he was also the man monitoring the house.’

As he spoke, I picked up the photo of Molly and the kids beside the phone and looked at their smiling faces. It was taken a long time ago.

‘Is Foster still around?’

‘They’re all on suspension but he’s writing up the debrief.’

‘Find him. I want to talk to him today. Listen, Philip, why wasn’t Danny Moynihan leading the operation? He’s our most experienced silver commander.’

I put the photo back on the desk.

‘He’d done the morning shift. I called him but he stood himself down. He’d been drinking after his shift. He wasn’t drunk but-’

‘Yes, I get it. He was complying with the rules.’

The regulations for armed operations stated that officers should have had no drink or drugs of any nature in the previous eight hours.

‘Philip, why don’t you have anything for me? You have responsibility for our use of firearms, for God’s sake. There’s a press conference this morning. People will expect me to have answers. I expect to have answers, but I don’t. I’m supposed to go out on a limb and stand up for my officers when I don’t in fact know what has happened.’

‘Don’t you think it might be a good idea to postpone the press conference?’ I could hear by the tone of his voice that he thought I’d been wrong to call the press conference so soon in the first place.

‘I can’t do that.’

‘Well, then, why not keep it low-key?’

‘Were any weapons found at the house?’

‘No, sir.’

‘Have the people been identified yet?’

‘No, sir.’

‘So we don’t know if Bernard Grimes was even there.’

‘It seems unlikely, sir.’

‘Do we know who Edwards’s informant was?’

‘No, sir.’

I shook my head wearily.

‘Philip – give me something. Anything.’

At the press conference I announced that I’d asked Hampshire police to investigate under the direction of the Police Complaints Authority.

‘All the officers involved in last night’s incident have been suspended pending that investigation. That should not, however, be taken as an indication of guilt.’ I looked round the room. ‘In fact, I’m sure they will be vindicated.’

‘How can you be so confident that your officers haven’t acted badly?’ It was the young woman from the radio station.

I repeated what I had said to the chair of the Police Authority:

‘I have utter faith in my officers. Whatever happened was, I’m sure, justified.’

I saw Jack Lawrence’s jaw clench.

‘Did you actually know about this before it happened?’ she asked.

The jackals pricked up their ears.

‘I take full responsibility,’ I said.

‘Clever girl,’ I muttered to Jack as I left the room five minutes later.

‘She’s still learning, though – you don’t ask the decent questions when the pack is gathered – they just steal the answers for their own headlines.’

I nodded.

‘Sir.’ Jack sounded awkward. ‘Do you think you should have-?’

‘No – but it’s done now.’

Ten minutes after the end of the conference, William Simpson was phoning my mobile.

‘What was that, Bob?’

‘A press conference.’

‘And your resignation? I thought we had a conversation.’

‘I’ll be more effective if I remain in post.’

There was a silence on the other end of the phone. Then, before he hung up:

‘I hope you’re ready for what’s about to happen to you.’

The team from Hampshire arrived an hour or so later. I left them with Macklin. Mid-afternoon he phoned down to say that not only Edwards but also Finch and Charlie Foster were unavailable.

‘Unavailable?’

‘We can’t find them, sir.’

When I put the phone down it immediately rang again. Catherine, my daughter, on the line from Edinburgh. She’d heard a report on the radio about the deaths.

We had a difficult conversation. But, then, when didn’t we? She was appalled that I should defend my officers for such a horrendous crime without knowing the facts. I pointed out that she didn’t know the facts either. The conversation went downhill after that.

The evening papers all over the country agreed with her. They questioned my ‘arrogant prejudgement’ of the case.

The riot in Milldean started that night.

It was the crime families taking the piss. Reminding us who really ran the estate; punishing us for carrying out an operation in their neighbourhood without their say-so.

Those bastards could force almost anybody on the estate to do what they wanted because most of Milldean was in hock to them. The crime families between them, aside from all their other villainy, ran a big moneylending racket and had no shortage of clients too poor to get credit anywhere else. The ruinously high interest rates they charged meant people who borrowed money from them were pretty much indebted to them for life.

We kept the street blocked off as our SoC investigators trawled the house where the incident had taken place. At six in the evening, a crowd began to gather at the north end, near the pub. Most of the rioters issued out of the pub, the worse for wear after a day’s drinking. Stones were thrown.

The half dozen policemen at the barrier withdrew down the street to join their colleagues in front of the house. The crowd advanced.

The men in it were stereotypes from video footage of rioting drunken English football fans. Faces distorted with primitive rage, mouths contorted in hate. Animal. Men walking from the shoulder or with arms swaying like simians. Mindless. Utterly animal roars.

Riot control officers were waiting in a van at the other end of the street. Twenty of them. They came out with shields and advanced towards the mob. More stones. At the back of the crowd, a gang of men rolled a car over. Windows of the adjoining houses were smashed. Obscenities were hurled. The car was set on fire. Then, at 6.47 p.m., the first petrol bomb.

Rioters overturned more cars at each ingress to the estate to prevent police getting through. Windows of shops were broken. There was looting. By 7.30 p.m. we had another fifty officers with riot equipment deployed on the estate.

The riot continued through the evening. Three empty houses were torched. It wasn’t safe to send fire officers in. Other houses were broken into. Later, we heard about three rapes.

I wanted to go down but thought it more sensible to stay at HQ, both for operational reasons and because I was myself a flashpoint. Chief Inspector Anderson was OPS1 for the evening so I avoided the Ops Room – he was easily alarmed.

The Hampshire police, meanwhile, were hard at work. They hadn’t been able to locate Finch, Foster and Edwards, either. And the identity of Edwards’s snitch was not, of course, logged into the computer system.

I phoned Molly to warn her I would be home late, if at all. She didn’t answer. I left a message on the voicemail.

I don’t need much sleep. I can get by for weeks at a time on four hours a night. I dislike the fact that I share a common trait with Margaret Thatcher and Winston Churchill, but there it is. I don’t know about them, but my body tells me when I do need more rest – I crash for a couple of days, then, revitalized, start all over again.

I stayed up until around four a.m. The rioting had calmed down by then so I used the sofa in my office to get a couple of hours’ rest.

I was up again at seven, thickheaded, in time to see the morning newspapers. They all splashed on the riot and laid the blame squarely on me and my remarks.

I spoke to Winston Hart, my chair, half an hour later. He alternated between panic and bluster. He was a long way out of his depth. Essentially he should have been a school governor and left it at that.

At eight Molly phoned. It was another difficult conversation.

At 8.15 a.m. I heard that Charlie Foster, the silver commander on the Milldean operation, was dead. A self-inflicted gunshot wound. I scarcely knew the man, so whilst I was sorry for his family’s loss, I cursed him for his selfishness.

We got the riots under control during that day but they flared again in the early evening. We used tear gas. Baton charges. Rioters set more cars on fire and smashed windows. Smoke gushed up from the estate, an oily black pall drifting over the city and out to sea.

The rioting was sorted by midnight, but by then the press were baying for my blood. I’d had two more conversations with Hart from the Police Authority. He was increasingly pissed off that I’d defended my officers before the investigation had taken place.

My old pal William Simpson, government fixer, phoned again.

‘Well?’ He was icy.

I put the phone down.

I’ve struggled all my life to curb my temper, tried not to bridle when others tell me what to do. If I think you’re being reasonable, I’ll listen, but if I don’t… And don’t ever order me. That was my undoing in the army.

By the end of that day, I told the press office not even to approach me with stuff until we had something to report.

At home I ran a gauntlet of press hyenas hanging about outside my house, then ran into a shit storm with Molly.

‘What the hell are you doing?’

She was standing in the kitchen, hands on hips, almost vibrating with tension, a pulse clearly visible in her neck.

‘Trying to calm a situation.’

‘You know I’ve not been able to get out of the house today. Those bloody scavengers. They’ve been trying to climb over the walls. Telephoning every five minutes. How dare you put me through this?’

She looked ashen and haggard. I wanted to put my arms round her but I couldn’t seem to take a step towards her. She was speaking slowly, precisely. I noted the almost empty bottle of wine on the kitchen table.

‘Tom called from Bristol. Your son wanted to know what’s going on. I had to tell him I had no bloody idea.’

‘I spoke to Catherine today. She’s OK.’

Molly stepped towards me.

‘Like hell is she OK. I spoke to her too. She’s having a hard time with this. With you defending murderers.’

‘My officers are not murderers.’

‘How do you know? Were you there – or are you God and you were watching with your all-seeing eye?’ She waved a dismissive hand at me. Curled her lip as only she could. ‘The arrogance of you.’

‘A good leader has to stand up for his men and women.’

‘Not if they’ve done something wrong.’

‘Especially if they’ve done something wrong.’

It sounded pompous, even to me. She sat down at the kitchen table. ‘Bollocks. So what are you going to do? You have to resign.’

‘I don’t and I won’t. I want to see the force through this.’

‘At whatever cost to your family.’

‘I’m a public servant.’

‘You’re a bag of wind.’

I turned my back on her.

I took a glass out of the cupboard and emptied into it what wine remained in the bottle. Thinking about the way the body count was rising.