Gallowstree Lane

by Kate London

  ‘Can I have my phone?’

  The man walked slowly towards him. ‘Keeps buzzing …’

  Ryan grabbed it out of his hand. ‘Yeah, thanks.’ It was probably his sister with loads of dead memes. She’d insisted on the new number and he’d said yes provided she didn’t tell Mum. He ran towards McDonald’s. The traffic was still moving slowly, and if he was quick, he could easily swing past Shakiel at the end of the road and give him the thumbs-up.

  The two cars had exited Maiden Lane, the darker one turning right, the lighter one left. Lizzie logged it and updated the WhatsApp.

  Angel said, ‘You got the darker car?’

  ‘Yes.’

  A marked police car had pulled left onto the road behind the target. It could just have been part of the traffic, a panda on its halting schedule of non-urgent calls.

  It wouldn’t be long now.

  Ryan swore at the stiffness of the bicycle lock, which cost him seconds to unlock. Should have oiled it! But then, slipping his leg over the crossbar and leaning forward, he quickly gathered speed. The BMW was ahead, queuing patiently, nothing special about it. Shakiel wouldn’t like him giving the car any signal. Nothing to draw attention. So he slowed his pace. He would just cycle past. Shakiel would see him and be pleased. They’d meet later and he’d hand over the gun. He’d be cool but something would have changed: he would have shown he knew how to handle himself. Then they would sort that other thing. That still frightened him, but after this success it would be easier.

  He could see a police car just behind the Beamer. Nothing to fret about. He rested his hands on the handlebars nevertheless because he had remembered Shakiel’s words: don’t give them any excuse. He didn’t change course, because that would be just the kind of thing to get them excited. As he overtook them, they flashed their blue lights once for the Beamer to pull over.

  Ryan cycled on, his hands sweating on the ridged rubber grips of the handlebars.

  Be cool, be cool.

  Lizzie watched. The BMW was pulling in, complying with the instruction to stop.

  Glancing to her right on a different screen, she could see that the stop on the Toyota had also begun, perfectly synchronized so that neither party could warn the other. She paid no mind to it, concentrating instead on her own car.

  The passenger door of the police car opened. A uniformed officer exited and approached the driver’s window of the BMW.

  Glancing over his shoulder, Ryan saw one of the cops – a lean, sporty guy with a beard – standing at the driver’s window. Just a routine pull, surely, the usual harassment. It was what Shakiel said: a black guy in a Beamer was always going to draw attention. But then, as Ryan cycled on, a hundred yards beyond the car he saw something that chilled him. Parked in a loading bay, a silver Vauxhall. Three up: two white, one black, all men. All with that look. Feds, for sure.

  A heavy man, whom Lizzie assumed was Shakiel, was getting out of the target car and moving slowly towards the boot.

  Her eyes travelled around the screen looking for anything out of place or unusual, but the camera was pulled in tight. She was asking Mohammed to zoom out just as Shakiel began to run.

  Stop, police!

  Ryan heard the shout and looked over his shoulder. Shakiel was running. The officer was chasing him and shouting.

  Armed police!

  Ryan jammed the gear lever forward and pedalled hard backwards. The chain slipped and derailed. He put his feet on the ground and looked again over his shoulder. Shakiel, about 100 metres away, was running through the traffic. His left elbow was lifting – so slowly, it seemed – and he was reaching under his armpit with his right hand. A woman pulled her toddler into the doorway of a shop. Ryan reached behind his back towards his own weapon. Shakiel met his eyes but he saw only the moment reflected in them – shock, determination, flight – and no idea of what Shakiel wanted.

  Suddenly the street was full of the noise of force. Sirens. Police cars from opposite directions: BMW X5s. Firearms cars.

  As if in a dream, Ryan looked towards the oncoming X5. Already it had been abandoned on the pavement, its doors open. Three officers were running up the road towards Shakiel, Glocks in hands. From the opposite direction too, three more feds, running hard through the traffic.

  Armed police!

  Pedestrians were scattering.

  But Shakiel was slowing. He withdrew his hand. Lifted both hands into the air.

  Ryan’s own hands went back to the handlebars. He felt like he was shaking all over, but maybe that was only happening on the inside. On the outside perhaps he just looked like a boy with a bike with the chain off. His body moved as if it belonged to somebody else. He hoped in a numb way that his actions looked normal – fucking chain’s come off! – but he felt like wood. This other person who was also him was wheeling the bike onto the pavement and to the front of a pound shop. Everything was fluorescent: footballs, storage boxes, flowers. Nobody beats our prices! It had happened all of a sudden: a feeling like being very stoned. He turned the bike over and fiddled with the chain, squatting down. Watching.

  Seen by Lizzie through the filter of the council CCTV, the actions were strangely impersonal. It was like watching a film, not something real. Perhaps the people on the street thought so too – as if a stray bullet could not kill them – because spectators had gathered to watch the show. Some were filming it on their mobiles. A bunch of women standing in a group. A man standing looking out of an open window. A woman paused with a pram. On the pavement on the same side as the stop, an upturned bicycle. The chain must have come off. A young man standing in front of it. It was just London, normal life interrupted by incident.

  The camera was zoomed out and a silver car was moving into the screen. Turned out it had covert blue lights, because Lizzie could see them flaring white. It wasn’t moving quickly: just enough of a show to progress through the traffic and draw alongside the BMW. A tall man – Kieran, she realized – got out of the silver Vauxhall and the car drove on, pulling into a bay a little further along the street. Two firearms officers were standing by the BMW. There was a forensic-suited person with a camera, too. Kieran shook their hands. Then he stood and gazed for a while into the open boot of the car.

  The helicopter hovered overhead. Ryan stood, hands on hips, and watched it all from a distance. The traffic was weaving around the various cars, the drivers slowing and turning to see what was going on. Because it was interesting, definitely. An incident. Further back, impatience was beginning. Horns were sounding. But the cops looked slow, steady, unflustered.

  Shakiel had been handcuffed, back to back. He surveyed the street as if he was a rightful emperor run to earth by invading forces who deserved his contempt. A tall guy who had been standing by the Beamer was walking down the street towards him.

  Ryan’s eyes flicked left. Steve was out of the car too, also cuffed. He was different from Shaks – shabby, a bit broken – and Ryan’s heart went out to him. He was an old bloke to serve a lot of time.

  One of the firearms officers was female, he noticed. She looked super-fit in her kit with the gun strapped to her leg and her little blue cap. Fact was, Ryan’s brain couldn’t quite catch up with the disaster that was happening in front of him. It was all so tidy, unfussed. Organized – definitely. Polite. His eyes travelled again to Shakiel, who was standing now next to the tall guy. They seemed to be having some kind of chat, almost as if they were bredren.

  It all looked good: a silent black-and-white cop drama playing on a small screen. Lizzie knew it was Kieran talking to Shakiel but it was as if he was a stranger to her. Steve had been taken out of the driver’s seat of the car and cuffed. Did the firearms officers even know he was police? They were walking Shakiel and Steve to the boot of the car and opening it. The cops would be wearing cameras. Here was the evidence, the continuity, the live reaction, the res gestae. The thing itself. Proof. This was what it was like to have complete control.

  Ryan’s view was partially blocked, but he knew wha
t was happening and how irreversible it was. He was watching his world crumbling. He imagined Shakiel composing his face as he gazed on the weapons in the trunk. What would he be saying? Nothing. He would say nothing. His expression would not change. He was the master of himself. Ryan wanted to reach behind to his waistband and blast away.

  Bang, bang, bang!

  But there were six of them, all with shiny Glocks. All that training and shit. It would be a quick way to die and he didn’t want to die. He wanted … what? To be in control. Not to be standing here watching and not knowing what to do.

  Shakiel was put in one of the firearms cars. Steve in the Vauxhall further up the road.

  As Ryan stood there dazed, the car carrying Shakiel drove past. Shakiel looked steadily out of the rear passenger window. Ryan was standing right on the kerb and Shakiel must have seen him as he passed but he made no acknowledgement, just stared. Ryan wondered again about Jarral not being there. Was it him? Was he a snitch? Was this what had gone wrong?

  He knelt down and lifted the chain onto the cogs, his hands sticky with oil. Then he closed his eyes and clenched his hands into tight fists, momentarily lost in darkness.

  He stood up, threw his leg over the crossbar and edged out into the traffic to cycle away in the opposite direction. He didn’t want to overtake those cars, no way. He was trying to know what to do as he knew Shakiel would. No one to ring this time. No one to ask. Should he throw the machine? No idea! He wasn’t a man after all, just a boy on a bike. He would get away, find somewhere to hang out, think it through. Maybe Shakiel would get someone to him. Too late he realized that he was approaching the silver Vauxhall. It was moving slowly through the traffic. It was behind the other cars because it had had to turn. He wanted somehow to avoid it, but that would draw attention. So he pushed through and started to speed up, just a boy on a bike with somewhere to go.

  As he approached the car, no one was looking at him. They were all talking, friendly as anything. The driver was smiling. Perhaps someone had cracked a joke. He was higher than the passengers, and as he passed, he had a view of their laps. Steve was rubbing his right wrist, rotating it in his left hand. The handcuffs were off. And there in the shelter of the car, one of the other officers was stretching out to shake his hand.

  Shakiel sat beside Kieran on the back seat of the firearms car, looking silently out of the window. The two officers in the front were joking, leaning back, passing round a bag of chocolates. They were AFOs – authorized firearms officers – and were from a different tribe to Kieran, just giving him a lift with his prisoner as a courtesy. Beyond the writing of brief statements, the job was over for them. It had gone well, no mistakes, no worries to take home. No more blue lights for them now, just the halting drift of the traffic, moving slowly westwards.

  ‘Toffee eclairs?’ the guy in the front passenger seat said. ‘Who the hell likes them?’

  Kieran was miles away, trying to picture again the opened boot of the BMW: the black nylon holdalls crammed in together. Two of the bags had been unzipped and showed barrels and stocks, ammunition taped up with silver gaffer tape. A grey-muzzled silencer. Lying side by side milled-steel Kalashnikovs with wooden stocks and curved magazines. Had he counted seven? And at least four of Neo’s stylish little killers – Skorpion machine pistols, semiautomatic, with twenty rounds in the magazines. A pick-and-mix selection of Cold War weaponry. Relics, but lethal enough. Tucked down the side, like socks in an overnight bag, the green pineapple ridges of a couple of hand grenades. It was giddying. It was craziness. The boot of the car was a whole war waiting to happen.

  He wasn’t one for mementoes, but he thought he’d keep one of the crime-scene photos of that boot. Black and white would be nice. Framed.

  It might turn out to be the best job of his career.

  But he also couldn’t avoid the wave of disappointment that passed through him. However good it was, the thing made real was never as satisfying as the dream of it.

  He didn’t know what to do with this feeling. It was always there.

  A few years ago he would have called his wife, Rachel, but she was less patient of his triumphs nowadays. He looked down at his phone and texted Lizzie.

  I know you identified Jarral to Sarah Collins but I forgive you.

  No reply came.

  It would be good to see Steve; he’d share in the satisfaction. But last thing Kieran had heard, Ryan was still outstanding and so Steve was going back to the flat in case he turned up there. There was a risk Perseus would have leaked but it was only small; the suspects were going to be held incommunicado in a custody suite open solely for the use of the operation’s prisoners. And it was also a risk to leave Ryan outstanding, so they’d decided to go for it. It was only ever Shakiel, Jarral or Ryan who went to the flat anyway. Steve would wait in the flat and call for support if Ryan appeared at the door.

  There were always some matters that needed tidying up, but the details were receding in favour of the bigger picture. The weapons had been seized. The main guy was sitting in the back of the car beside him. The thrill of it passed through Kieran again and he saw that moment once more: Shakiel breaking into a run. Because he had triumphed, Kieran could allow a certain poignancy. It must have been years since Shakiel had run like that, but Kieran could still see the youth he had once been, making off from police through London’s streets. Shakiel’s hand had reached under his armpit and Kieran had felt an anticipatory horror at the thought of the round the AFO would inevitably release, spiralling through the air faster than the eye, towards the threat that must be stopped. But Shakiel was a young man no longer. The cadence of his running steps had slowed, as if he was a sprinter pulling up at the line, and his hand had altered course, away from his armpit and the oblivion it would bring. Age and experience moved both hands skywards, empty and in plain view, slow and clear in their surrender.

  The takedown was textbook. One officer covering with a gun and Shakiel going to his knees. Walking across the tarmac, Kieran had made himself move slowly. The things he had thought he would say, he didn’t. If Shakiel recognised him after so many years, he gave no indication. Kieran showed his warrant card, arm extended. ‘I’m Detective Inspector Kieran Shaw and I’m arresting you for being concerned in the importation of firearms contrary to Section 170 (2) of the Customs and Excise Management Act 1979 …’

  He had looked forward to the interview, but now, sitting in the car, it was almost hard to picture it, that sublime moment reduced to the necessity of a series of questions that would never be answered.

  Were you aware of the contents of the holdalls?

  No comment.

  Nothing either of them said would matter. They had Shakiel recorded before, during and after, chapter and verse. The intent, the planning, the money, the weapons. Thirty years minimum, Kieran reckoned. He’d maybe only serve fifteen, but – whatever ignorant people said – that was a long time to sleep in a cell and have to eat what you were given.

  Kieran remembered releasing him after the arrest for the murder of Daniel Harris. Still young men, they’d paused together at the back door of the station.

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘No worries, Shakiel. I’ll be seeing you.’

  Perhaps his own life had been one long surrender since then, the purity of the thing diluted as it must be. Things beginning with M – mortgages, a marriage, a mistress. Hours of commuting. His dog, Pebbles, now old and grey-muzzled. His daughter, Samantha, who had seemed for a time to hold the world in her hand, like a perfect snow globe. Even she hadn’t been enough to keep him faithful. The imprint of Connor’s four fingers curled around his neck. This was his life passing. Perhaps not so very different from Shakiel’s after all. Their train tracks had flowed away from each other but run on, parallel. The first of Shakiel’s sons had appeared on a surveillance tape – a handsome boy, tall for his age, wearing a red football kit and carrying a sports bag over his shoulder. The financial investigator had reported that Shakiel was paying school fees: a b
oarding school, apparently. Surrey. What would happen to the boy when Shakiel went to prison? Would the school stump up for the kid from the ends or would he be back to the inner-city academy, the estate car parks, the boys circling on bikes and the objects passed hand to hand?

  Kieran turned to look at Shakiel, but he was still staring out of the window at the London street.

  Just a snatched glimpse through the car window.

  Ryan hadn’t been able to see Steve’s face, but he had seen his hands, and the handcuffs were off.

  He cycled on, almost blind to the road.

  The handcuffs were off. So what? After all, handcuffs hurt. They knock against the bone. Hurt like hell. Sometimes they leave marks. Perhaps the cops had let him take them off. Why not? They do that sometimes. They’d felt sorry for him, poor old boy – a long stretch ahead at his age.

  And Ryan hadn’t seen Steve’s face so he didn’t know whether Steve was laughing like the driver had been.

  But then the last bit of the loop that he didn’t want to see. Steve’s thin hand – raised veins, crinkly skin – reaching across and accepting the handshake.

  Could he be sure? Could he be sure?

  He cycled hard, aiming to get somewhere safe to think it all through, but his phone had started ringing and he remembered the man in the bagel shop passing it to him.

  Keeps buzzing.

  With one hand on the handlebars, he fished it from his hoody. Perhaps there was an answer to all this. An explanation. Perhaps things weren’t as bad as they looked.

  He knew the voice although he’d heard it only once before. His body was filling with the darkness of that night and the juk of the blade and his dead friend’s voice.

  ‘Please, don’t.’

  Angel said, ‘That’ll be it. All done, good as gold.’

  But on the tiny screen, a bicycle, passing the unmarked Vauxhall in the opposite direction, had caught Lizzie’s eye. Had it slowed slightly as it passed? It had been off screen in a matter of seconds.