Chapter Text
‘What could possibly go wrong?’ I asked with my very best Jeremy Clarkson rhetorical bombast.
Detective Chief Inspector Thomas Nightingale, who thinks Top Gear is the one he’s most likely to utilise in the Jag in case of emergency, frowned at me. ‘I am surprised that you of all people would make light of the situation, Peter. The demonstration organisers say they are expecting attendance in excess of forty-thousand this afternoon, centred on the location of the shooting, and with its recent history of destructive rioting, Tottenham is—’
‘Yeah yeah. I was at the briefing too, remember?’
I do take this seriously – seriously! – which is why we were taking the Asbo, not the aforementioned Jag, and since we were taking the Asbo, I was the one driving. I refrained from slapping the steering wheel in annoyance as we turned onto Ferry Lane. Just.
You see, several years ago, a young half-black man named Mark Duggan was pulled over by police and shot dead on the pavement along this very road. Opinion differs precisely on how much of a delinquent he was, but one thing is certain: If you’re a white cop who shoots an unarmed black man, you can get away with murder. Literally. We’re a lot like the States in that regard here in London. Only with better public transport.
Public outcry over Duggan’s death kicked off riots in the summer of 2011. We at the Metropolitan Police Service refer to them as a ‘grievous failure in community policing efforts and open dialogue.’ The rest of the world remembers them as wall-to-wall, 24-hour news coverage of a sudden spate of arson, looting and general mayhem convulsing London and other parts of Britain. You have probably seen the photographs of the burning – and burnt out shells of – homes, businesses and buses.
And those riots began in Tottenham, a neighbourhood in North London already associated with racially charged rioting. Heard of the Broadwater Farm riots of 1985? Well, I’m not going to go into details, but suffice it to say that the community didn’t appreciate the policing back then either, and people died.
Mark Duggan grew up on the Broadwater Farm Estate. Oh, did I neglect to mention that? He was four years old during the riots of 1985. Funny that, how it’s all connected.
Nightingale was still frowning at me. ‘Peter …’
I didn’t want to have this conversation with my governor, so I ignored him. Detective Constable Peter Grant, Londoner and trueborn son of a white man and a black woman, might – or so it might be reasonably thought – have more sympathy for the demonstrators than the police converging upon Tottenham in force of numbers to corral and control said demonstrators. And even I will admit that I look more the disreputable sort who gets shot by a cop than a cop himself.
To think that once upon a faraway time I used to be worried that I would be forced to work undercover for Operation Trident and learn how to pretend to be a drug dealer. Please note that ‘drug dealer’ was the career choice I had originally declined with extreme prejudice before applying for a job with the Metropolitan Police Service.
Instead I was apprenticed to Britain’s last known surviving practitioner of magic – one Thomas Nightingale, born 1900 and ageing mysteriously in reverse – and learned how to do magic myself.
But more on that later.
We crossed the bridge over the River Lea and took the first right onto Bream Close. The quiet street leading down an unexpectedly suburban development, neat rows of quaint, semi-detached houses with single-car garages on one side and blocks of redbrick flats boasting Juliet balconies with river views and private parking on the other, was already clogged with police vehicles.
Both the Heron Wharf Management Company, Limited and the Heron Wharf Residents’ Association had happily given the Met permission to use the development as our staging ground for today’s CO11 public order operation. (I’ve been told that riots depress rents and real estate values. Needless to say, they had a vested interest.) Top brass had seconded anyone and everyone who could be spared from their usual divisions for the day to CO11.
In this case, ‘anyone and everyone’ included myself and Nightingale. After the events of One Hyde Park, the Folly had improved its case clearance rate dramatically. So we could be spared. Lucky us. Or lucky me.
All right, all right, I admit it: that bit about our improved clearance rate is a naked, streaking the city centre lie. It is true, however, that we are not normally regarded as the Met’s Most Essential.
I deftly manoeuvred the Asbo between two police vans and parked. As we climbed out of our seats, it occurred to me that Heron Wharf was aptly named: An actual grey heron was flying northward along the river, over the bridge we’d just crossed.
The de facto base of operations appeared to be operating out of one of the car parks, and it was a buzzing beehive of police activity. We headed dutifully in that direction.
‘DCI Nightingale and DC Grant, I presume?’ asked a rookie PC fully suited up in riot gear as we approached. He didn’t bother to check our warrant cards. We may not have come bearing wands, but we from the Folly are famous. No, strike that – infamous. And unwelcome. Did I mention unwelcome?
The unwelcome was palpable, in fact, and CO11’s commanding officer, middle-aged and straight out of central casting for a nineties ITV police procedural, was already wearing a stormy expression, and it became stormier when he caught sight of us. ‘This better be a secondment and not Falcon business,’ he practically snarled.
‘No,’ replied Nightingale smoothly, ‘we are not here on Falcon business. We simply—’
‘Kids these days!’ interrupted the CO11 officer with appropriate contempt for the young. ‘Off work on Monday, and back in on Tuesday to discover that they’ve got together on Facebook overnight and decided to make trouble.’
Nightingale pulled a faux-sympathetic expression, one white man to another. I grunted noncommittally; my POLICE-branded stab vest superseded my age and my skin colour at present – I’d even donned the hated helmet just to be certain – but I knew damn full well that my Good Guy status was always going to be provisional amongst such constitutionally conservative types.
I wasn’t going to blame austerity, nine-thousand quid tuition fees, UKIP or Brexit on the Millennials, though. They were the chief victims, not the perpetrators, of our Very British Troubles, and if a horde of disgruntled hipsters converging on Tottenham to protest the global resurgence of racism and white supremacy this mild, sunny summer day was to be the worst of the Met’s problems, we were getting off lightly as far as I was concerned. If I didn’t see fit to say so, naturally that was merely out of polite consideration for the feelings of my esteemed colleagues in law enforcement.
‘—latest word is that Lammy wants to address the crowd this afternoon. A handful of mealy-mouthed Haringey Council types may make an appearance as well,’ said the CO11 officer, his disgust for Labour politicians such as the (black) MP for Tottenham and occasional PM hopeful David Lammy and Haringey Borough’s affluent progressive types all too apparent. ‘I’m putting the two of you in charge of the security detail on Lammy. I don’t care what you do,’ he snorted with ill humour. ‘Post him back to Parliament in a coffin after it’s over for all I care—’
A faint, distant sound of shattering glass and bodies being pounded by a blunt object interrupted him. With it came the delight in destruction, the adrenaline rush of violence, the raucous mayhem of the mob.
Never laugh when a hearse rolls by, or you may be the next to die!
‘Did you hear that?’ I asked.
‘Hear what?’ asked the CO11 officer impatiently.
All goes well for ’bout a week, and then your coffin begins to leak! The worms crawl in, the worms crawl out, the worms play pinochle on your snout …
Nightingale’s eyes were wide, and he nodded grimly. He’d heard it.
Mr Punch. The patron saint of the midnight riot.
Your stomach turns a slimy green, and puss comes out like whipping cream. You spread it on a slice of bread, and that’s what you eat when you are DEAD!
A sour taste rose into my mouth. It tasted a lot like fear. Or the grave. In that moment, I almost wished that it had just been my overactive imagination.