The Common Enemy

by Paul Gitsham

  Davenport licked his lips, a sign that he was probably going to try and avoid telling the full story.

  ‘He didn’t like the direction Tommy was taking the party.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Tommy was moving away from our beliefs. Jimmy saw him as a traitor.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘Tommy reckoned the future was in getting rid of Muslims. We all do of course, but he reckoned it was worth sacrificing your principles for.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘The BAP was founded on the belief that Britain is a white, Christian country and that immigrants should be encouraged to go home. We believe that Britain was only Great Britain when it was populated by the super race and that the mass uncontrolled immigration since the Second World War has brought this country to its knees. In the past seventy years we’ve diluted our bloodlines and given away our right to govern ourselves. And now we’re paying the price; a collapsed economy, paedophiles and queers on every street corner and religious nutters threatening to kill us if we don’t follow their rules. There should be no exceptions.’

  ‘But Tommy thought differently?’

  ‘He kept on talking about the “bigger picture”. He reckoned that there were other organisations that felt the same way that we did about Muslims and that we might want to get them to help us in our cause.

  ‘Jimmy found out that Tommy was talking on the internet with some group called “Sikhs Against Jihadis”. They wanted an end to Islamic law being forced down their necks. He was furious. He thought that it was a betrayal of everything we stood for.’

  ‘And did anyone else hold the same views as Tommy?’

  ‘A couple. I reckon Bellies might be persuaded.’

  So Jimmy Meegan was angry with his brother for changing the direction of the party. ‘Now Tommy is gone, who will lead the BAP?’

  Davenport shrugged. ‘Take a guess.’

  Chapter 70

  Warren and Sutton had another five-minute consultation in the corridor.

  ‘Would Jimmy really kill his own brother over his political views?’ asked Warren.

  ‘I’m sure it wouldn’t be the first time. Cain and Abel set something of a precedent,’ responded Sutton.

  ‘I know, but these groups are splitting and reforming all the time – there must be something more to it.’

  ‘Goldie could just be trying to pin all of it on Jimmy to save his own skin,’ pointed out Sutton. ‘We have nothing linking Jimmy to Middlesbury the night of the mugging. Goldie could easily be the killer, maybe even working alongside somebody like Bellies Brandon.’

  ‘Brandon certainly has motive, given what we know about Tommy Meegan and his wife.’ Warren twisted his lip thoughtfully, before making his mind up.

  ‘Let’s lean on him. Get him to give us more.’

  ‘Usual roles?’

  ‘Oh, yes.’

  * * *

  ‘I’m sorry, Marcus. Nothing you’ve told us makes me believe that you had no involvement in Tommy Meegan’s death.’

  Tony Sutton was less polite.

  ‘Do you seriously expect us to believe that Jimmy Meegan murdered his own brother because of his political beliefs? This is Middlesbury, not the Garden of Eden.’

  Whether Davenport’s look of confusion was from Sutton’s esoteric biblical reference or he was genuinely surprised that his story hadn’t been accepted at face value was unclear.

  ‘You are going to have to give us something a bit more concrete if you want to convince us that Jimmy Meegan was responsible for his own brother’s death.’

  Davenport squirmed in his seat, before looking at his solicitor. She shrugged slightly.

  ‘There were some photos,’ he finally managed.

  ‘What sort of photos?’

  ‘Jimmy is a shirt-lifter. I don’t know if Tommy knew and just ignored it or he really had no idea.’

  ‘Jimmy Meegan is gay?’

  Warren fought to keep the surprise out of his voice.

  ‘Yeah. Couldn’t believe it when I finally figured it out. Especially since he’d been done for queer bashing a couple of years ago. But then loads of stuff started to make sense. We’d go out on the pull and he’d be chatting up the birds and all that, but he rarely took them home. I heard rumours that he was having a bit of difficulty keeping it up. I figured it was probably the coke and the booze you know. Then there were stories about when he was inside. I ignored it at first. People always talk shit about you when you’ve been to prison.’

  ‘So what made you change your mind?’ asked Warren.

  ‘I found an app on his phone. He was a right bastard for posting stuff on Facebook if you left your phone unlocked and I wanted to get him back. He had a really easy swipe gesture to unlock the phone, so one day when he left his phone to go for a piss I unlocked it. He had that gay dating app on his home screen, with a load of notifications.’

  ‘And that was a problem?’ asked Sutton.

  Davenport looked at him incredulously. ‘You’ve visited our website, right?’

  He answered his own question. ‘Homosexuality is perverted and against the natural order of things.’ He leant forward, a flash of the old fire returning. ‘Mark my words. The worst thing this country ever did was make being gay legal. Now we have poofs teaching our kids and getting married for fuck’s sake. No wonder there are so many paedos about.’

  ‘So you told Tommy his brother is gay. I thought you and Jimmy were friends,’ Sutton continued.

  Davenport said nothing. Was that shame?

  ‘How did he react?’

  Davenport chewed his lip and maintained his silence.

  ‘I don’t believe you,’ announced Sutton, leaning back and clasping his hands across his chest.

  ‘What do you mean? I’m telling the truth.’ The man’s voice was an indignant squeak.

  ‘Oh, I have no problem believing Jimmy is gay. All that homo-erotic, gay Nazi stuff that you guys are into, I figure the whole lot of you are hiding something.’

  ‘Fuck off!’ snapped Davenport, before a glare from his solicitor silenced him.

  ‘No, what I find difficult to believe is that you had the balls to tell his brother. That you marched up to him and said, “Tommy, your brother’s batting for the other team.” He’d have punched your lights out.’

  ‘DI Sutton, I find your choice of language offensive,’ interjected Davenport’s solicitor half-heartedly.

  Sutton ignored her. ‘Seriously. A nutter like Tommy Meegan would never believe you.’

  ‘I had proof. I unlocked his phone and took a picture of the app on the screen.’

  ‘Really, that’s all you had? Tommy Meegan was no brain surgeon, but even he’d have demanded a bit more than that.’

  Davenport fell silent and stared at the table.

  Warren let the silence settle, before taking over from Sutton.

  ‘What else did you have, Marcus?’

  ‘I had other photos. Of him, you know…’

  ‘How did you get them?’

  ‘I looked on his phone again and saw he’d arranged to go to a gay bar in Basildon and meet some guy. So I followed him.’

  ‘After you followed him into the bar, what happened next?’

  Davenport’s mouth twisted slightly.

  ‘I didn’t go in, I waited around outside.’

  Davenport licked his lips again. If the man played poker, that would be his tell, Warren decided.

  ‘Then what?’

  ‘They went to the guy’s car and got in. I thought they were going to drive off. But the car didn’t move. Then I figured out what they were doing.’

  ‘So what did you do?’

  ‘I sneaked up to the car. I was worried he might see me, but he had his eyes closed.’

  ‘What about the other man?’

  ‘Can’t you just use your fucking imagination?’ snapped Davenport.

  Warren gestured towards the tape recorder. ‘For the record.’

&n
bsp; Davenport scowled. ‘He was getting a bloody blowjob in a car park behind a gay bar. I took photos. Satisfied?’

  Chapter 71

  ‘Do you have the photographs, Mr Davenport?’ asked Warren after the skinhead regained his composure.

  ‘No, I deleted them, I didn’t want that shit on my phone.’

  ‘Convenient. Was this before or after you showed them to Tommy?’ asked Sutton.

  Davenport said nothing.

  Sutton continued. ‘You see I still can’t imagine you marching up to Tommy and showing him your snaps. I reckon he’d have put you in hospital. What did you do with them? Post them on Facebook and tag them both? Print them out and pin them to the noticeboard in the pub? How did Tommy Meegan find out about these pictures that you have so conveniently deleted?’

  Davenport mumbled something as he stared at the table.

  ‘Speak up for the tape,’ instructed Sutton, sternly.

  ‘Email.’

  ‘You emailed them to him?’

  ‘Not directly.’ Davenport was staring at the table top like a scientist looking down a microscope.

  Warren took over, ignoring his response for the moment.

  ‘What puzzles me is what motivated you to do all this? Why go to all this trouble to prove Jimmy, your mate, was gay?’

  Davenport said nothing.

  ‘You’ve cracked the lock on his phone, opened up this gay dating app and used it to follow him to a gay bar. You’ve then waited around outside before sneaking up on him and his date and photographing them through the car window like a grubby little paparazzi. You’re like some sort of twenty-first-century Miss Marple. Why on earth would you do that?’

  Davenport remained silent.

  ‘Frankly, Marcus, unless you can come up with a good reason for why you did this and show me some evidence, I don’t believe you and as it stands I’ll be recommending the CPS charge you with Tommy Meegan’s murder,’ said Warren.

  It was a huge bluff and gamble and Warren could see Davenport’s solicitor formulating her objections even as he opened his mouth.

  ‘It wasn’t my idea.’

  At last. Warren’s gut told him that he was finally getting to the heart of the matter.

  ‘Whose idea was it?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Davenport sounded close to tears.

  ‘You’ll have to do better than that.’

  ‘A few weeks ago, I got a private message on Facebook. I didn’t recognise the user, the name was mostly gibberish.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘The person said “I know what you did March the twenty-second”.’

  ‘And what did you do on March the twenty-second?’ asked Warren.

  Davenport’s solicitor clearly wanted to intervene. She obviously suspected that he was about to incriminate himself but had no idea what he was about to say.

  Davenport licked his lips.

  ‘If I tell you, I want a guarantee that I’ll not be charged.’ He looked towards his solicitor for approval who scowled back unimpressed.

  ‘No chance. Carry on.’

  Warren stared at him until his shoulders slumped and he returned his gaze to the table.

  ‘There was a bit of a ruckus outside the Golden Eagle at closing time. A group of Asian lads started giving us some verbal, so we stuck up for ourselves. Anyhow, they called a few of their mates over. Bunch of fucking student layabouts. We chucked a couple of bottles in their direction and most of them pissed themselves and ran off.’

  ‘Then what?’ Warren prompted.

  ‘One of the Asians was a bit more up for it and cornered me round the back where the bins were. So I had to defend myself.’

  ‘How did you defend yourself?’

  Davenport cringed slightly shrinking in on himself.

  ‘I hit him with a broken bottle.’

  Warren remembered the case now. A group of Asian students had been threatened by a group of, presumably, far-right thugs as they walked through one of the less salubrious parts of Romford. One of the Asian lads was hand-in-hand with his white girlfriend and this was believed to have been a trigger.

  In the resulting melee, one of the students had been cornered around the back of the pub and glassed with a broken bottle. Surgeons had saved his sight but he would never be able to smile properly again. His attacker had taken the bottle with him as he fled and the CCTV images were too blurry for any suspects to be identified.

  ‘So somebody claims that they knew you were responsible for the attack?’ said Warren.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘And do you have any idea who the person is or how they know about the attack?’

  ‘Not a clue. The Facebook profile was deleted shortly afterwards.’

  ‘So what happened?’

  ‘They said that they would go to the police with what they knew if I didn’t do what they asked.’

  ‘And what did they ask?’

  Davenport sighed. ‘They said that there were rumours about Jimmy and that they wanted evidence.’

  ‘Why?’ asked Sutton.

  ‘I don’t know, they didn’t say.’

  ‘Really? Did you think they wanted to sign him up for next year’s Pride march?’ Sutton responded.

  ‘Look, I didn’t really care, OK? All I knew was I was facing a long stretch inside and if I didn’t do as I was told I was fucked.’

  ‘So what did you do?’ asked Warren.

  ‘I started following Jimmy, but he was too careful and I was getting desperate. I really did stumble across the app on his phone, although I was trying to access his email at the time. I took a photograph of the screen, but there was no evidence it was his phone or that he used it for anything but a bit of queer bashing.’

  ‘Again, what did you do?’

  ‘The next time he left his phone I accessed the app then followed him to the gay club.’

  ‘And what about the photos? Did you really delete them?’

  Davenport nodded miserably, clearly realising that he might have disposed of the only piece of evidence that could prove his story.

  ‘I assume that you sent them to this contact first?’

  ‘Yeah, I sent it to some random Hotmail address.’

  ‘Do you have the address?’

  ‘I deleted it from my phone’s sent folder. If Jimmy found it…’

  * * *

  Unfortunately for Warren and Sutton, Davenport was unable to give them any more help, other than furnishing them with a list of the other BAP members present during the attack. There were no new names to add to their list; Tommy and Jimmy Meegan and Bellies Brandon were already under investigation.

  ‘It could still all be a load of cock and bull,’ opined Sutton.

  ‘Possibly, but why would he incriminate himself in such a way?’ replied Warren. ‘Until his admission in there, nobody had a clue who was responsible for that attack. He’d pretty much gotten away with it. Now he’s under arrest and facing charges. He’s also confessed to mugging Binay Singh Mahal, who again could make something of it.’

  ‘Misdirection?’ responded Sutton. ‘What if Tommy was threatening to expose him and Goldie killed him to shut him up? Then he concocts some story about Tommy and Jimmy falling out over Jimmy’s sexual orientation.’

  ‘A bit elaborate don’t you think? Secret photos, mysterious Facebook contacts, and anonymous email accounts? He should be in Hollywood writing spy thrillers. He doesn’t strike me as that creative.’

  Sutton let out a hiss. ‘The whole thing seems implausible.’

  ‘Well, let’s see what Forensic IT have to say about it. Draft another warrant for Facebook, they should be able to retrieve those deleted messages,’ ordered Warren.

  Thursday 31st July

  Chapter 72

  Unable to stomach the A10 yet again, Warren decided to practise his delegation skills and despatched Tony Sutton and Gary Hastings to oversee the Met scenes of crime team’s search of Jimmy Meegan’s flat. A forced entry team had found the flat empty the previo
us day. None of the man’s neighbours could recall seeing him recently.

  The drive down to Romford had been unusually quiet; ordinarily Sutton enjoyed spending a couple of hours in the car with Hastings. The two men had wide-ranging musical tastes and enjoyed discussing them; a complete conversational non-starter with their DCI. However, Hastings had seemed unusually pre-occupied, and so after a few faltering starts, Sutton left him to stare out of the window.

  Hastings’ head was buzzing. At the start of the week he’d been worried about his upcoming interview, the ever-receding dream of owning their own home and Karen’s mysterious illness, not to mention the pressures that came with any high-intensity investigation.

  The pregnancy had turned all of that upside down and after the comedown from what he prayed had been a successful interview, he had started to prioritise what mattered most. To that end, the previous night he’d finally done something that he’d been delaying for far too long. He felt the edges of his mouth curling upwards.

  ‘We’re here,’ announced Sutton as he applied the handbrake.

  The younger Meegan brother was a cokehead; an observation confirmed by the preliminary drug tests performed on the traces of white powder found on the razor blade and the cracked mirror on the coffee table. Furthermore, it seemed that neither brother had inherited the tidy gene from their mother.

  Piles of dirty dishes teetered precariously on every surface; empty food packets and crushed beer cans spilled from the over-filled recycle bin, whilst the smell from the overflowing general waste bin made Sutton wonder if losing your sense of smell was a consequence of snorting cocaine on a regular basis.

  The bedroom wasn’t much better. The room was close and stuffy, although given the local area Sutton couldn’t blame him for not leaving the ground-floor window open; nevertheless a couple of air-fresheners wouldn’t have gone amiss.

  The wastepaper basket was as overloaded as the kitchen bin. However, aside from a couple of empty crisp packets there wasn’t any food rotting amongst the used tissues and pocket litter. He pulled a face; it looked as though Jimmy Meegan suffered from regular nosebleeds. Sutton carefully emptied the bin into an evidence sack and sealed it; they’d need to ensure that the blood was Jimmy’s. Holding the bag up to eye-level, he carefully manipulated its contents through the clear plastic.