London Falling

TWO

Gipsy Hill was indeed a hill, and the nick was situated near the top of it; at the highest point above sea level that any police station in London occupied. Quill had just stepped out of his vehicle in the Hill’s car park which was, as usual, lit up like a stadium. Well, a stadium where a few of the lights were broken. It was just past 11 p.m., at the very end of the old year.

‘Midnight!’ he was saying into his Airwave radio, while Harry marched beside him, talking equally urgently into his phone. ‘So we’re assembling at a quarter to, round the corner from the house in Bermondsey, which means we have to be out of here-’ He paused when he heard the sound of engines behind him, and turned to see a line of unmarked cars rolling in, followed by an Armed Response Vehicle out of Old Street. ‘-right now!’ He then exclaimed, ‘You beauty!’ before correcting himself, ‘Sorry, ma’am.’

Harry waited until his superior had switched off the radio. ‘You still reckon Toshack’s going to run for it?’

‘Not so much now. I’ve been talking to the uniforms who’re moving in on every place he’s been to, and he’s been making a fuckload of noise at every one of them. That’s hardly sneaking out of the country. That’s more like desperation. He’s looking for someone important to him: an old flame, or a kid he lost track of. If he’s cashing in, it’ll be with a shotgun to his own forehead on the stroke of midnight. Only, instead, we’ll be there to hear his confession.’

Harry coughed a laugh. ‘At least then we’ll get him for possession of a firearm.’

They got into one of the waiting cars. As police officers in Metvests came running out of Gipsy Hill police station to start filling up the other vehicles, Quill waved for his driver to join the convoy.

Costain watched as Rob Toshack stepped slowly down from the cab of the SUV. His last hope had gone with that final house. ‘What would you do if you were me, son?’ the boss asked.

The question you could never answer. You started making suggestions, saying hit them here and here, and a jury would start to wonder if these fine gentlemen would have done any of that without you egging them on. Run for the airport, Rob. Take me with you. The fuckers who’re after you, you’re worth ten of them. ‘I don’t know what the problem is, boss.’

‘I’m just going upstairs for a minute.’

Rob went inside, and Costain walked quickly after him, aware of Sefton catching up, but he didn’t look back to check on him. Upstairs meant Rob was going to lock himself into his den. They’d searched that room in the past, and Rob only kept it locked when he himself was inside. He’d spend hours up there, and come down looking elated, telling some new story of how a certain someone either wouldn’t be getting in their way much longer, or had been persuaded over to their point of view. Or that would be the moment he’d choose for sorting and then sending out the supply. As if having the supply in his own home wasn’t a risk at all; it had proved not to be. Costain followed him upstairs, and heard the other boys switching the telly on down below, their laughter rising; crisis over, they thought. Sefton had stayed down there, too, thank Christ.

‘Rob,’ Costain said, ‘what’s wrong?’

But Rob just shook his head and went on into his den. He locked the door behind him.

Costain waited a few moments, then put his ear to the door.

He didn’t hear Rob talking to anyone. Instead he was fumbling with something. The den was actually quite a big space, obviously a spare bedroom from the days when that meant showing off some square feet. Rob had lined it with shelves stacked with cardboard boxes, most of which — as the two UCs had discovered on that day of blissful hope when they’d made a search in there — were empty. Nor, Costain was sure, having had a look at the plans and done some tapping on walls, was there enough room in the house for a hidden den or passage.

There was a sudden noise, and for a moment Costain thought something must have fallen. But then there was silence again. Very aware of time rushing past, Costain kept listening. It was twenty to midnight when he heard another sound from inside, and he had to stand up quickly and get away as Rob’s footsteps approached the door. What had the man been doing in there? What did he ever do in there?

Rob emerged from the den looking as if he’d had the last tiny bit of hope shaken out of him, but his dignity seemed to have returned as a result. ‘Having earlier sampled a bit of what we sell, Blakey,’ he said, ‘I find I don’t like it very much. So, in the next ten minutes, I’d like to get as pissed as humanly possible.’

The pair of them sat in an empty bedroom, London cloud glowing dull-orange through the window. From downstairs Costain could hear the sounds of the party getting raucous. Sefton would be sweating now, aware that, just for once, he had to let his colleague make the play.

‘When Dad died,’ said Rob, ‘my brother Alf was left in charge. He was older than me, and he was shagging the proverbial deer with no eyes — literally had no fucking idea. All these vicious kids, with their crack and their guns, were sprouting up around us. We had no resources to match that. We had community, yes, but community don’t mean a thing when it gets in the way of money. Nothing to stop a jeep mowing down the gnomes in the front garden and then some twat from Jamaica chucking a grenade through your window. Here’s the secret, Tony: London’s always about what’s moving underneath, about what’s pushing what. It was understanding that which let me get past what Alf left me with.’ He raised his can of lager, managing a smile as if at some private joke. ‘To Alf.’

Costain joined in. ‘You never did talk much about him dying.’

‘You’re right there, Tone. There’s a lot of memories you don’t want to dwell on.’

‘I know you. You’re not going off after midnight. You’ll be staying put.’

‘Nah, I’m off. To somewhere abroad. Oh, get that look off your face. I don’t mean right now. It’s just that things are going to change now, maybe very quickly, starting at midnight, and I haven’t got. . I haven’t got the protection no more. When everyone realizes that. . well, all I’ll have then to protect me is loyalty and tradition.’

‘Maybe sometimes loyalty and tradition actually count. They do between me and you, anyway. You know I’ve always watched your back.’ Just go out front, get in the car, and go. I’ll say you tricked me. I’m going down, anyway.

‘You have indeed, Tone, and I’ll see you lot right. I’ll distribute a shitload of working cash to the soldiers, and use the rest to leg it.’

Maybe give me something I can give them. Just tell me about the freelancers. About the supply.

‘Anyway, it’ll all go to hell.’ He threw aside the empty can of lager and grabbed another. ‘I caused chaos in this town on my way up, but that’s nothing compared to when they’ll start fighting over what I’ve left behind. And they don’t have the advantages I had. It’ll be back to the old days, to shootings on the doorsteps. It’s meant to be the end of the world soon, innit?’

‘Always is.’

‘I thought tonight I might manage to keep my edge, that I might get someone I know to extend a deal, but. .’

Costain inclined his head, waiting.

‘Now I might be on the wrong end of it. Someone might make a better offer. And then-’

Costain looked up just then and saw Sefton in the doorway, making out that he was heading for the bog. He held his hand up: five minutes until they arrive.

Okay.

He actually found he was smiling now that they’d got to it. He was the star of this picture — inside, at least — and he’d either pull this off or it’d kill him. ‘Rob. . you know what you mean to me. And that’s real, that’s solid, but this comes from the same place, okay? No reason for me to even say it, otherwise. You see. . Blake isn’t my real name.’

‘What?’

‘Rob, mate, I’m an undercover copper.’

Sefton was out of the doorway like a shot, a horrified expression on his face, away and down the stairs without a sound. Yeah, you just scuttle off. Costain’s gaze flicked quickly back to Rob.

The king of London, his expression now a mask of horror, was getting slowly to his feet. ‘I could have known,’ he said. ‘I could have asked.’

Oh, Christ, where did that come from?! Why did he have to go and say that?!

‘I didn’t, though,’ Rob continued, ‘’cos it didn’t seem like there was anything you lot could do.’

Costain stayed sitting. ‘None of what you’ve built up can protect you from the other gangs. Or from your freelancers if they’ve been turned. All it would cost you is those fuckers. The dark side of your network. The ones who let you down.’ The ones you could have ‘asked’ about UCs!

Toshack held his gaze for a moment. Then he went for his gun.

Sefton went into the front room, where he ignored the soldiers drinking in front of the telly. He looked at his watch. Three minutes.

No, Costain, the stupid bloody sod, didn’t even have that much time.

So, which window? That one. He went over to a lamp, and checked nobody was looking at him. He quickly moved the table the lamp was sitting on by couple of feet, and switched it on. He stood between it and the window, but was smiling and watching the telly again when Mick looked round at him. Then, when Mick turned away, Sefton raised one arm in a loop right up against the window, and touched the top of his head.

Costain was staring at the tiny O-shaped cavity of the end of the gun. Toshack’s hands were shaking, but he was aiming at Costain’s stomach: the certain shot, the lingering death. ‘You bastard,’ he said. ‘Did you take it away from me? Can coppers do that?’

‘I don’t know anything about that.’ Costain tried to make his expression convey to the other man that he hadn’t wanted it to go this way, that they were now being overheard, and that he had no choice. At any second, the Nagra tape would run out with a loud click, the stuff of UC nightmares, perhaps be the cause of his death now, if Toshack was startled by it. The wall clock said he had three minutes.

‘You say you want to help me?’

‘I want to. I so bloody want to. You’ve given me a home here, Rob — first proper home I ever had. I haven’t told them nothing, so far. I was planted here, and then I saw what sort of house you kept. So they was waiting for tonight. But if I can save you with what we talk about here, if I can use the resources these coppers have got, and get you into hiding-’

‘Grass, you mean?’

Costain got to his feet. ‘You’re the only boss left who cares about that honour shit! You see how London’s going, how the world’s going! The rest of them use grasses as just another weapon against each other. What’s the point of being noble, when nobody else is?’

‘“Noble!” The trouble is, you shite, that your mates would never believe me!’

‘They would if it came from me.’

‘What, they trust you, do they? Do they know about some of the stuff you’ve done while you were on my books?’

No, and you don’t know all of it either. But there was something in Rob’s look that said he was desperate enough to listen, that if Costain could find a way through in the next two minutes. . ‘Listen-!’

Just then, from downstairs, there came the slam of a door bursting open under the impact of a battering ram.

Rob stood there stock-still, horrified. The sounds of shouting and scuffling rose from downstairs. But no gunshots, which meant that the soldiers, who had never had to fight, were folding.

‘Give me something!’ shouted Costain. ‘Something that shows them you were willing to talk before you got nicked. For Martha’s sake!’

But now there were boots running up the stairs. All hope dropped instantly from Rob’s face. Costain leaped for him. Rob’s shot went wild. Costain hit the big man, and they both went down. As they fell he could hear ‘Gun, gun!’ from the Armed Response coppers thundering upwards through the house. When they got there, could he trust them? And who at Gipsy Hill was he going to be able to trust with that tape? It said that the nick had been breached; that there was someone who could give out info on UCs.

Rob fought to keep the gun. He slammed Costain to one side and then the other, but Costain managed to keep a grip on the hand holding the weapon. As they burst in through the doorway, Costain realized that Rob wasn’t trying to twist it round to aim at him, but was keeping his arm straight as if hoping to get a shot off at-

Costain rolled him aside and that shot went through the window. ‘Don’t you fucking shoot him!’ he bellowed.

Many hands grabbed for the pair’s wrists and suddenly the gun was gone, and they were being hauled to their feet, and Costain struggled, spat and swore at them as they heaved first him and then Rob towards the door. There were sounds, cries from the next floor, as more officers pounded up into the house. He could hear Martha starting to scream insults.

On the landing, they smashed his face against the wall. His wrists were hauled behind him before the cuffs bit into them. He was pushed back towards the stairs, Rob passing him, but not looking at him. Below, he could see Sefton, cuffed also, being shoved out of the door, in a line with all the soldiers.

Suddenly, at the foot of the stairs, Rob made his move. With a great cry, he surged forwards, out of the grasp of so many hands, his own still pinned behind his back, and propelled a uniformed copper into the wall, his forehead connecting brutally with the man’s throat and bringing him down. He bounced off the man, bellowing incoherently at all the others, his red face like that of an animal roaring at its fate, defiant to the last. ‘For you!’ he shouted. ‘For you, if you want, you sow!’ Costain didn’t know if he was talking about luck or about Martha or what, but it was magnificent to witness. He let out a bellow of coke-fuelled laughter, thrashing out again against the uniforms around him.

A kind of ecstatic yell of triumph rose from the rest of the uniforms gathered downstairs. They piled into Rob, some bursting in through the front door, or rushing back down the stairs, pushing past Costain. Rob was lost in the sea of them, crying out loudly under the blows.

Resisting arrest. All the abuse coppers took, people spitting in your face. .

Resisting arrest. Set off that powder keg.

Though, while in cuffs, it shouldn’t. Not these days.

Costain thought — as they heaved him down the stairs soon after, as he still heard the sound of blows and Rob’s cries of protest — of the four years he’d been involved in this. Of the six times during that period he’d been stopped and searched. A patrol officer in Kilburn, just a kid, had called him ‘nigger’ and slapped him on the cheek. The one time, too, that he’d had his warrant card on him, and they hadn’t bloody found it. He still had the young man’s shoulder number scribbled on a piece of paper in his wallet, and he thought of it at times like this.

Quill was fighting his way into the throng now, physically pulling coppers off Rob’s back. ‘Robert. . Stephen. . Toshack,’ he had begun yelling, ‘. . you do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if. .’

From the television nearby, Costain heard the New Year’s Day celebrations beginning. A moment later there sounded, from the small of his back, a single loud click.

He was dragged out through the door, without any eye contact from Quill, and across the huge dark coldness of the morning, and thrown into the back of one of a string of police vans, like all the other soldiers in their beery suits.

And he let out a breath and closed his eyes, and felt a rush of fear at what was still only in his head and on that tape.

The police helicopter hovered above Bermondsey, every stroke of its blades swallowing the last available money out of its last operation, the coppers inside it watching not just the raid on the Toshack home but simultaneous assaults on the garages and front-room distribution centres and suburban brothels. They were fully intent on their last duties before they’d be on their way into oblivion. Like the rest of London, they felt — from on high tonight — bitterly. They were too intent, in fact, to notice that, through what seemed to be coincidence, every prisoner taken out of every building was being removed in a south-westerly direction.

The wheel that was London had started, ever so slowly, to turn once again.