by Paul Gitsham
Warren changed slide to one showing a wide angle shot of a narrow gap between a fish and chip shop and a nail and hair bar. Large waste bins took up three quarters of the width, leaving barely enough room for a large man to squeeze past. Blue and white crime scene tape demarked the entrance. A large pool of dark red blood was clearly visible.
‘So we have a gap of almost four hours between the last known photograph of him and his body being discovered. Do we have a time of death yet?’ This time it was Detective Constable Gary Hastings who asked the question. The young officer was currently applying for promotion to sergeant and was no doubt desperate to ask a question in the presence of senior officers. Unfortunately, he was standing at the back and nobody bothered to turn around to see who had spoken.
‘I’m afraid the weather was so warm that his core temperature had yet to fall by a significant amount, DC Hastings. The pathologist may be a bit more helpful after the post-mortem is completed, but I doubt we’ll narrow the window of opportunity very much.’
Even if ACC Naseem didn’t know Hastings’ face, Warren could at least name-drop the young officer.
‘What about cause of death?’ asked DC Karen Hardwick.
‘Preliminary finding is stabbing; you can see how much blood was lost. He has some other superficial cuts and bruises that may have arisen during the riot. Again, the PM will tell us more.’
‘What about CCTV?’ DSI Grayson was the questioner now.
‘We’ve pulled the footage from all of the cameras on the high street and all the businesses in the vicinity, but, as you can see, there are significant blind spots.’
A simple, top-down line drawing of the alleyway and the surrounding street replaced the photograph. The locations of fixed cameras were marked, along with arcs showing their fields of view.
‘Unfortunately, there was only one camera covering the opening of the alleyway and none at the rear. Irritatingly that camera was broken a couple of days ago and hadn’t been repaired.’
ACC Naseem shifted slightly in his chair. ‘Premeditation?’
‘A good question, sir. It was taken out by a brick on Thursday night. Since there were no break-ins or crimes reported in the area, it was logged as petty vandalism and no one attended.’
‘I hope that oversight has been addressed, DCI Jones.’
Warren let the implied rebuke slide; pointing out that the unit’s strategic priorities placed low-level criminal damage well down the list would have been unwise, given that several of the people responsible for deciding those priorities were seated in the room.
‘Yes, sir. We’re looking at other cameras in the vicinity from that time period to see if we can identify the culprit.’
‘What is the status of the crime scene?’
‘The crime scene investigators are still there, doing a fingertip search for the murder weapon. We’ve blocked off most of the town centre because we aren’t sure what route Mr Meegan took to the alleyway. Sunday trading laws mean we have the area to ourselves for another couple of hours, but I’ll need authorisation to keep the area closed much longer.’
Naseem nodded to Grayson.
Warren clicked to the blank slide that signalled the end of the presentation.
‘It’s going to be a big investigation, people. We have a team from HQ down in Welwyn Garden City joining us later to boost our numbers. In addition, the fire that broke out at the Islamic Centre at about the same time has been confirmed as suspicious. It looks as if it might also be upgraded to homicide if two victims sheltering in the centre when it caught fire don’t pull through.’
‘How likely do you think it is that the fire was linked with Tommy Meegan’s murder?’ asked the Superintendent sitting to the left of ACC Naseem. ‘Could it have been tit-for-tat?’
‘Based on the timings, it looks as though a direct retaliation either way is unlikely, ma’am. However I believe that some sort of link is likely.’
‘Thank you, DCI Jones.’ Naseem stood up and turned to address the assembled officers.
‘As you all know, it takes a lot to get me out of my office.’ A few polite chuckles passed around the room. ‘Unfortunately, this is going to be a big deal. I think we can all agree that the death of Tommy Meegan is no great loss to humanity, but his murder is going to cause us significant problems going forwards. Middlesbury’s a small town, with pretty good community relations for the most part, but this could cause all manner of trouble. You don’t need me to tell you that what is likely to happen if it transpires that the fire at the Islamic Centre and the protest march are linked. You also don’t need me to tell you that yesterday’s counter-protest policing didn’t go to plan. Clearly, not enough resources were deployed. The decision was then made to reassign other resources, leaving the Islamic Centre vulnerable.
‘The press are all over us. We’ll be announcing a review in due course but in the meantime I want to make it absolutely clear that all communication with the media goes through the press office.’ He fixed the room with a glare. ‘Anybody caught going off-message with members of the fourth estate will be in my office explaining themselves. That includes social media. Keep your mouths shut and stick to posting pictures of kittens on Facebook.’
A mutter of assent rippled around the room. Warren hoped the rebuke would have effect, these days one ill-thought tweet could go viral and end a career.
With that, Naseem retook his seat and the next speaker stood up.
‘Morning, everybody, I’m Theo Garfield from Hertfordshire Constabulary’s Hate Crime Intelligence Unit. I liaise with the National Crime Agency and other groups such as the Football Intelligence Unit and the Social Media Intelligence Unit. I’m here to make sure that you have all the information you need about the late Mr Meegan and his band of merry men and to place some of yesterday afternoon’s events into context for you.’
Theo Garfield was a whip-thin man with a shaved head and dark olive complexion. His accent remained resolutely Merseyside, although it was clear that he had been living in the south for some years. He too was armed with a PowerPoint presentation, although his was a lot slicker than Warren’s.
‘As you are aware, Mr Meegan was the spokesperson for the British Allegiance Party, or BAP as it is commonly known; apparently all the good names were taken.’ Garfield smiled briefly. ‘They tried a couple of other three letter acronyms, but were threatened with legal action if they didn’t stop using them. Not that their current name is without its problems Allegiance is a difficult word to spell and so Unite Against Fascism have bought the web domain names with the most common misspellings and redirect lost visitors to their own site.’
Laughter rippled around the room.
‘BAP are a motley bunch. As always with these organisations, the hardcore wouldn’t fill more than a minibus, but they can muster a coachload for special occasions, and their numbers appear to be increasing. Pretty much everyone who turned up yesterday was already in our files. Almost everyone on that bus has at least one conviction for violent assault.’
The slide changed to a photograph of Tommy Meegan and his brother in a pub, arm-in-arm, wearing England football shirts and holding half-empty pint glasses aloft.
‘This was taken a few years ago, probably during the 2012 European Championships – we know it’s not this year’s World Cup because they are celebrating a win.’ This prompted more laughter. ‘The driving force behind the party are the two brothers, Tommy and younger brother Jimmy. Local boys, they went to school in Middlesbury before they moved down to Essex. This weekend was supposed to be a bit of a homecoming for them.
‘Tommy has multiple arrests for racially aggravated assault, but he’s an absolute charmer compared to Jimmy who has spent more time since his eighteenth birthday inside than out. Like father, like son. Football hooliganism, racially aggravated assault, beating up homosexuals… you name it, he’s been done for it and there’s almost certainly a whole lot more besides.’
The slide switched to a photograph of an older m
an. Even without the bent features of his two sons, the family resemblance was immediately clear. ‘Meet the late, unlamented Ray Meegan. A veteran of the Seventies’ and Eighties’ hooligan scene he also did time for armed robbery. In fact, he was wanted in connection with an attack on a post office when he dropped dead of a heart attack seven years ago.’
He smiled. ‘The family tried to talk down the far-right connections and play the victim when the local paper interviewed them after anti-fascist protestors gatecrashed the funeral, but a half-page photograph of the coffin in the background draped in swastika-shaped wreaths kind of scuppered that.’
Garfield was an engaging speaker and the team were enjoying the break from the typical dry presentations, however Warren got the impression that if he let him, the man would chatter on all day.
‘You said that we know who the hardcore of the party are?’
‘Yeah. The party has only existed in its current form for about five years and most of its founding members came from other organisations that we were tracking. Ideologically it is not a political party and is unashamedly racist. The far-right scene has been undergoing serious ructions in the past decade or so with many of the slightly more moderate believers joining quasi-political parties such as the BNP, the EDL or, more recently, UKIP.
‘BAP on the other hand claims to have no belief or faith in the democratic process and draws support from the real nasty end of the political spectrum, including former members of Combat 18 and the National Front. They are openly affiliated to some of the European neo-Nazi parties, such as the Austrian Freedom Party and populist anti-Islamist movements, such as Pegida.
‘Yesterday’s march was their biggest event to date. Apart from a few so-called “direct action” events, most of their presence is internet-based.’
Garfield switched slides. ‘They may be uneducated thugs for the most part, but somebody in the party has clearly been on a few social media training courses. Their website is pretty slick, but their main strength lies in their use of Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and the like.
‘The big social media firms remove some of their more racially charged and offensive posts, but for the most part they stick within the rules. Perhaps more insidious are their subtler campaigns. This is typical…’ He clicked to another slide, a picture of a homeless person and a banner urging viewers to ‘share if you think it’s a disgrace that former soldiers starve whilst immigrants get free housing’. Warren recognised the image from his own Facebook feed. He’d deleted it without sharing.
‘They have several dozen known accounts, some with openly provocative names such as “Keep Britain British” and others with more innocuous titles such as “Proud to be British”, sharing harmless patriotic fare. The First World War commemorations have been a real party for them, with lots of pictures of poppies and young Tommies. We’re expecting a major offensive in the run-up to Remembrance Sunday with attempts to hijack the poppy appeal.’
‘Why? Surely most of the people sharing these posts have no idea who’s behind them and would be appalled if they knew?’ The tone of the questioner, sat somewhere towards the back, suggested that they may be reconsidering some of the pages that they had personally liked or shared.
Garfield gave a shrug, ‘Nobody’s really sure. Some of it’s plainly propaganda and the number of shares – which is in the tens of thousands for some of these posts – probably helps them claim to be on the side of the “silent majority”. We think it might also be a form of market research, using the number of likes, shares and retweets as a means of gauging popularity for different causes. They might also get a bit of click-through revenue from people visiting their websites. As to its effectiveness in terms of active members, it’s hard to tell. They operate a lot of sock puppets – fake accounts – so it appears as if they have more supporters than they actually do.’
Warren cleared his throat slightly, he didn’t want to end up spending all morning discussing the far-right’s social media strategy.
Taking his cue, Garfield switched to the next slide.
‘On the opposite side of the argument to the BAP, we have the counter-protestors. It’s early days, but part of my team is also trying to identify as many of them as possible. Somebody killed Tommy Meegan and it’s as good a place to start as any. There were a lot more there than we expected, so we’ll have our work cut out for us.’
That was something of an understatement. From what Warren had gleaned so far, the number of BAP supporters was as predicted, but the counter-protest was significantly larger than anticipated. It had been sheer weight of numbers that had caused the lines to collapse and it was little more than good luck that more people hadn’t been injured or even killed.
‘We’re compiling a list and scrutinising CCTV for known faces, but we know that a lot of attendees were either concerned locals, or not known to us. We have a couple of super-recognisers helping us, but the seasoned veterans were wearing masks or had their faces and tattoos covered. Aside from the usual agitators there were also protestors from more mainstream leftist groups, people showing solidarity with the local Muslim community, and lots of students, none of whom are likely to be in our files.’
‘Any indicators from social media about who may have wanted to kill Meegan?’ asked Warren.
‘It’s hard to tell. BAP members, particularly the Meegans, get so many death threats posted on their blogs, Facebook pages and Twitter feeds they hardly bother to block them anymore. Where possible, we’re identifying and cross-referencing accounts with the list of attendees, but it’s slow going.’
Warren thanked him, feeling slightly dejected. The power of the internet had transformed policing in recent years, with many officers like Mags Richardson in his own unit becoming experts in its use. However, that power was also its downfall. The chances were good that buried amongst the vast amounts of data being collected were hints to the identity of Tommy Meegan’s killer. But finding those clues could take months or even years of sifting. Quite aside from the huge budget implications, Warren didn’t have months or years. The local and national media were already reporting a spike in inflammatory social media posts, from the far-right, the Muslim community and anti-racism campaigners. Even if Warren and his team had yet to find a direct link between the fire and the protest march and its aftermath, the public at large were already conflating the two events. Unless something was done soon Middlesbury was facing a bloodbath.
Chapter 2
After the briefing, Warren was summoned to DSI Grayson’s office. The privacy blinds were drawn on the door, so he had no idea who or what was awaiting him when he entered.
‘Sirs,’ Warren greeted the seated officers. There were no spare chairs, so Warren found himself standing like a naughty schoolboy.
‘Coffee?’
That was a good sign, the Assistant Chief Constable didn’t offer you some of John Grayson’s finest roast if you were in trouble.
‘That’d be lovely, sir.’
As one of the ACC’s assistants poured Warren a cup, he got down to business.
‘Let’s be blunt, Warren. Yesterday was a colossal cock-up on several levels, not least the murder of Tommy Meegan. We massively underestimated the number of counter-protestors and had to pull in reinforcements from across the region. The riot was bad enough, but a politically charged murder and an arson attack on a vulnerable target that we should have been protecting… we dropped the ball big-time.’
Warren stole a glance at DSI Grayson, who looked grim. The problem had landed squarely in his lap – which by extension meant Warren’s. The subtext was clear. Hertfordshire Constabulary was already looking foolish; now it was time to clean up the mess, and do it quickly. The grapevine was already buzzing with speculation that the officer in charge was likely to fall on her sword. Would the same be expected of Grayson – even Warren – if he failed to deliver?
‘Monitoring from the Social Media Intelligence Unit indicated tensions were already running high before the march, and n
ow the far-right have gone ballistic,’ continued Naseem. ‘They’re already deciding how to capitalise on yesterday’s events. These buggers couldn’t decide on the colour of the sky normally, they hate each other almost as much as they hate non-whites and homosexuals, but yesterday’s killing is uniting them. The same goes for a lot of the anti-fascist organisations; we’re already seeing calls for mass protests if we don’t start making arrests over the Islamic Centre fire soon. More than a few keyboard warriors have said that what happened to Tommy Meegan was long overdue and have started naming other far-right activists as potential targets.’
The room settled into a leaden silence; eventually Garfield spoke up.
‘This time of year is full of significant dates for the far-right. They were originally planning on marching on the seventh of July, the anniversary of the London bombings. I guess they figured they could try and make a link between the proposed new mosque and Islamic extremism. We blocked that as too provocative. Then they tried to march on the first of August. Obviously we’re wise to that and said no.’
Warren evidently didn’t hide his ignorance fully.
‘The first of August, written 1/8 represents the initials of Adolph Hitler. It’s where Combat 18 get their name from.’
‘I see.’
‘So they suggested the next day. We almost let them have it, until we ran it through the computer – the eightieth anniversary of Hitler’s rise to Fuhrer. Finally, we settled on Saturday the nineteenth of July as comparatively harmless.’
‘OK.’
Warren didn’t quite see what they were so concerned about, surely the issue had been fixed?
‘The problem is that whilst we could stop a march through town on the grounds that it was likely to cause a breach of the peace, they’re already calling for his funeral to be held on August the first.’
‘Shit.’
‘Exactly. It’ll be a magnet for every right-winger in Europe. He’s already being eulogised as some sort of bloody martyr.’