To Hell in a Handcart

by Richard Littlejohn

  Mickey kept the Smith & Wesson in his metal gun safe at all times. Unless he was away from the house, in which case it, too, was under lock and key, he kept the Glock in a drawer with the magazine of ammunition close to hand.

  Habit, really.

  Mickey poured himself a large Jameson’s. He was missing Andi and the kids. Hearing her voice on the telephone cheered and saddened him simultaneously. As the smooth blend swilled round his mouth, Mickey reflected on the travails of the immediate past.

  The ambush, the Goblin’s incident, Fromby, the burglary, the dead cat. He’d been able to sort the Goblin’s business, he’d dealt with the aftermath of the break-in but he’d been powerless to prevent any of it happening in the first place.

  His family had been exposed to danger and trauma. And it wasn’t his fault, but it was his responsibility.

  He felt pretty damn useless, impotent. Twenty-five years in the Old Bill, commendations for bravery, and for what? He couldn’t even keep his own family safe, except by sending them 4,500 miles away.

  Fuck it. Mickey poured another Jameson’s and turned down the lights. The darkness outside matched the darkness descending upon his soul, the haunting images of his frail, sobbing daughter; the bovine, defiant expression on Wayne Sutton’s face; the snarling, scavenging beggars; the smug, self-righteous Justin fucking Fromby.

  Sod it.

  Mickey drained the bottle, switched off the lamp and closed his eyes.

  No point going to an empty bed.

  Forty

  The black cab came to rest in a lay-by, next to a sign reading, ‘Heffer’s Bottom. Twinned with Reinaldo-sur-Mandy’. Ilie Popescu engaged the handbrake, turned off the headlights and shut down the engine. He took a swig from a half-bottle of vodka he’d brought with him from the hostel.

  He retrieved the crumpled scrap of paper containing Mickey French’s address and rough directions from his jeans pocket. He pulled out an A-Z from the side of the driver’s seat.

  Ilie reached into his jacket pocket and took out a small ziplock envelope of white powder. He peeled off one of the five-pound notes and rolled it into a tube. He propped the A-Z on the steering wheel and levelled it with his left hand.

  Ilie tipped the cocaine onto the shiny surface of the A-Z and, using the sharp edge of the ziplock packet, fashioned it into two roughly equal lines.

  Expertly holding the rolled-up note in two fingers and blocking his left nostril with his thumb he snorted one of the lines. Ilie waited a few seconds and then repeated the exercise, this time inhaling through his left nostril while blocking his right with his other thumb.

  Ilie took another swig of vodka, turned the engine back on, released the handbrake and headed for his target.

  Heffer’s Bottom was as it had been described to him, even in the dark. This was as deep into the English countryside as Ilie had ever ventured.

  He drove past the church, then a field full of caravans, old lorries, horses, some rather impressive 4×4 off-roaders.

  Once his mission was complete, Ilie thought to himself, he might dump the noisy, sluggish black cab and steal one of the off-roaders for the journey back to London.

  The loosely tethered Alsatians and free-roaming Rottweilers made him reconsider.

  There were burning embers in the field and piles of scrap metal dotted everywhere. It reminded him of his home village in the Tigani, back in Romania.

  Ilie passed the post office and the pub and turned into Mickey’s street. The house was on his right.

  Ilie drew up thirty yards further on. There were houses on only one side of the street. Opposite were fields, a farm track, a small copse, overgrown hedgerows. The road was quiet, dark. There were half a dozen street lights but only one was actually working. Ilie got out of the cab and walked slowly towards his target.

  There were no lights on in the house. No car in the drive. Staying close to a privet hedge which separated Mickey French’s house from the adjoining property, he peered into the garage through the small window in a side door. No car in there, either. Excellent.

  Ilie crept into the back garden. No lights in the back, either. No windows open back or front.

  Chances were there was no one inside. Who sleeps with the windows shut in this weather?

  Ilie noticed he was sweating profusely. Beads were running down his neck. The back of his shirt was sopping and the perspiration ran down the crack of his arse. He suppressed a sneeze brought on by the cocaine. His mouth was parched. The vodka was dehydrating him.

  Ilie returned to the black cab, parked a hundred yards away.

  He took the petrol can from the boot, checked the cigarette lighter in his jacket pocket and walked back towards the house.

  An owl hooted, a cat screeched.

  A fox ran out in front of Ilie, startling him.

  He approached the house stealthily and listened. No lights, no movement, no sound, no sign of life.

  Ilie decided the best way in was straight through the front door.

  If there was anyone in the house, which was unlikely, they’d be asleep.

  Worst-case scenario, he’d have time to scatter the petrol, start the fire and be out of there before they knew what was going on.

  And if there was anyone there and they fried, fuck ‘em.

  Ilie placed the petrol can at the side of the garage.

  He walked up to the front door and checked the security.

  No deadlock, just a Yale.

  Piece of piss.

  Not much of a door either. Couple of good blows should take it down, if he hit it right.

  Ilie retreated onto the lawn, took a run at the door and launched himself at it, feet first.

  It yielded instantly, coming away at the hinges and crashing into the hallway.

  Ilie’s momentum took him through with it.

  Mickey French still had the barrel of the Glock on his lap when he heard the crash.

  What the fuck?

  The pikeys. They said they’d be back.

  Mickey grabbed the magazine from the side table and jammed it into the stock of the gun. It was a fluid movement. He’d done it a hundred times in training.

  Mickey somersaulted forward and sprang to his feet.

  Fuck it. He could feel his back giving way.

  It was pitch black. By the pale backlight from the street illuminating the hallway, through the open living-room door, Mickey could see a dark shadow advancing.

  He took aim and fired. Two shots, by the book.

  Double tap.

  The bullets hit Ilie Popescu at a speed of 1,350 feet per second, sending him spinning backwards through the front door.

  The momentum carried Ilie into the garden, the shock of the impact anaesthetized by the cocktail of cocaine and vodka coursing through his system.

  Mickey, temporarily blinded by the muzzle flash, stumbled after him, tripping, falling flat on his face.

  He’d been trained for this kind of situation. But the sound of gunfire, the muzzle flash, the surprise all served to disorientate him momentarily.

  Ilie Popescu staggered onto the lawn. He felt as if he had been hit by a sledgehammer. But where?

  He clutched his upper left arm, his chest, his shoulder. The narcotics were distorting his nervous system.

  Fuck. I’ve been shot, it dawned on him. Run. Get away.

  He could see the cab. If only he could make it.

  As Ilie turned, two more bullets thudded into his chest, exploding his heart, like a duck egg in a microwave.

  Ilie was killed instantly. As he fell on the lawn, a trickle of blood seeped from his mouth.

  Mickey heaved himself to his feet and limped towards the body, gun clutched in both hands, pointing towards the corpse on the lawn.

  His back was in agony. Mickey felt as if he was the one who’d been shot.

  He walked over to the body and prodded it with his foot.

  Brown bread.

  Mickey stood in the middle of the lawn and looked to the heavens. Thank
God Andi and the kids were in Florida.

  What the fuck was happening to his life? On top of everything, he’d just killed a man.

  He’d been trained to kill. He was no stranger to death.

  He just never thought he’d have to shoot an intruder in his own home.

  Mickey’s heart was pumping. The adrenalin rush flushing the day’s booze from his system. He had to think clearly.

  Mickey knew what had to be done. Call it in, preserve the scene.

  He’d probably spend all next day answering questions, but this was a clean shoot. It was self-defence, any way you cut it.

  They wouldn’t question his version of events. Not his word against a lying, thieving pikey. Not Mickey French, ex-cop, twenty-five years in, commendations, took a bullet for Queen and country.

  One of the good guys.

  Mickey felt no remorse. Not a flicker. He felt nothing for the young man lying dead on his front lawn.

  He walked back into the house and dialled 999.

  ‘Police,’ he told the operator, knowing his call would be switched through to Scotland Yard central despatch.

  ‘This is ex-detective sergeant Michael French. I wish to report a sudden death.’

  He gave the operator the address and a few brief details.

  Mickey replaced the Glock on the table in the living room and removed the magazine.

  He went to the kitchen, filled the kettle and waited, quite composed.

  The two young PCs in the area car took the call. They drew up about fifteen yards from the house and reported their position. They were told to await armed back-up.

  Fifteen minutes later, a convoy of police vehicles swept into the village. Armed officers surrounded the house, taking up positions behind cars and in the hedgerows. Ilie Popescu’s body lay undisturbed in the middle of the lawn.

  A helicopter hovered overhead.

  Mickey heard the commotion and wandered to the front door, clutching a mug of tea.

  He was temporarily dazzled by the flashing blue lights. He looked down to see his chest peppered with red dots from the night laser sights fitted to the police weapons.

  Mickey heard a voice over a megaphone.

  ‘This is Detective Inspector Colin Marsden, Angel Hill CID. You are surrounded by armed police. Put your arms above your head and walk slowly towards the middle of the lawn.’

  Mickey had been here before, just not on the receiving end. ‘It’s all right lads. I know the drill. Take it easy.’

  ‘Just do as you are told,’ barked the voice. ‘Walk to the middle of the lawn. Stop. Lie on the ground. Face down, hands behind your back. No sudden movement.’

  Mickey held his mug of tea at arm’s length and placed it on the window sill next to the front door. ‘I’ll drink that later. It’s a bit hot, anyway.’

  ‘Just do it,’ said the voice.

  Mickey walked slowly to the middle of the lawn.

  ‘Stop now,’ the inspector ordered as he drew level with the body of Ilie Popescu.

  ‘On the ground.’

  Mickey complied, painfully. His back was killing him.

  He knelt first, then slowly eased himself forward, lowering his left arm to take his weight.

  ‘Hands behind your back, where I can see them,’ the inspector ordered.

  Mickey may have known the drill, but for the first time in his life realized how it was virtually impossible for anyone in his situation to comply with proper police procedure. How do you lower yourself face down with your hands behind your back?

  His question was answered immediately.

  Mickey felt a boot in his back.

  ‘Do as you are fucking told,’ another voice yelled. ‘Down, down, down.’

  Mickey slumped forward.

  ‘Take it easy, lads,’ he appealed to them.

  ‘Shut the fuck up,’ he heard the young firearms officer behind him scream. ‘SHUT. THE. FUCK. UP. All right?’

  Mickey felt the nozzle of a rifle press hard against his neck. His hands were yanked backwards, his wrists bound with the new-fangled nylon hand restraints which were rapidly replacing the traditional metal cuffs. His back was alight.

  Mickey’s face was pressed to the ground. He turned his head to breathe more easily. He was no more than five feet from Ilie Popescu.

  The young man’s eyes were still wide open, staring. Mickey had seen that look before. Five got you ten he was on coke. There was blood running from his mouth.

  Mickey thought he’d seen that face before.

  But where?

  Looked familiar. Gyppo certainly. But more Eastern European than pikey. Who the fuck was it?

  What was he doing kicking in Mickey’s front door in the middle of the night?

  Burglary, probably.

  But how did he get here? Who was he with? Where were they now?

  Mickey felt a hand on his collar.

  ‘Right, you. Up.’

  ‘There’s no need for all this. I called it in,’ Mickey said.

  ‘I’m DI Marsden. You are not obliged to say anything but it may harm your defence if …’

  ‘… you fail to mention something which you later, yeah. Yeah,’ Mickey completed his sentence. ‘I know the score.’

  The young DI thought the prisoner looked vaguely familiar.

  ‘Marsden?’ said Mickey. ‘Eric Marsden’s boy?’

  ‘That’s right,’ said the DI.

  ‘Mickey French. Served with your dad at Tyburn Row.’

  ‘Right. Of course. But this is no time for a walk down memory lane. What the fuck has been going on here?’

  Mickey talked him through it, briefly.

  ‘Who’s the victim?’ Marsden asked.

  ‘Fuck knows,’ said Mickey. ‘Look, is it really necessary to truss me up like a fucking turkey?’

  ‘Suppose not,’ said Marsden. ‘Standard procedure. Sergeant, free the prisoner, please.’

  The sergeant cut Mickey loose.

  They walked into the house.

  ‘The gun’s there. On the table,’ he said, pointing to the Glock.

  Marsden took an evidence bag from his pocket, slipped on a pair of latex gloves, picked up the gun between his thumb and forefinger and dropped it into the bag.

  ‘No need for that, son,’ said Mickey. ‘I’m not denying it. Fancy a cup of tea? It was fresh made just before you got here. Might still be warm.’

  ‘You’re taking this very calmly, for someone who’s just shot a man dead,’ Marsden remarked.

  ‘It’s how I was trained to react. Weapons, close protection squad. Anyway, this was clean. The gun’s licensed. I’m a qualified police marksman.’

  ‘Ex-police marksman,’ Marsden corrected him.

  ‘OK, ex-police. But I’m still permitted to keep the gun for personal protection. This guy broke into my house in the middle of the night. I felt my life was threatened. Self-defence.’

  ‘You killed him. We’ve checked the body. He was unarmed,’ Marsden said.

  ‘I wasn’t to know that. Reasonable force. That’s all I used,’ Mickey insisted.

  ‘Reasonable force.’

  Forty-one

  A small crowd, woken by the commotion, had gathered by the time Mickey was escorted from the house to the waiting police car.

  ‘Mickey, you all right?’ called Mrs Baines, from number 23.

  ‘Mickey, son, what’s going on?’ Sid, the pub landlord, shouted from a distance.

  ‘Everything’s fine, Sid. Don’t worry,’ Mickey reassured him.

  A group of travellers from the illegal encampment on the village cricket pitch had also been attracted by the excitement.

  Amidst all the activity, no one noticed a black London taxi parked a hundred yards down the street being driven slowly away.

  Police were too busy sealing off the immediate area and asking questions of the assembled crowd.

  As the body of Ilie Popescu was being carried towards the ambulance, Mickey noticed a tall, greying-haired man in a donkey jac
ket, jeans and cut-off wellington boots talking to a plain-clothes cop.

  He recognized him as Seamus Milne, so-called ‘king of the gypsies’. Milne’s polished aluminium caravan dominated the camp in the village, like a medieval monarch’s tent on a battlefield.

  The plain-clothes cop halted the stretcher-bearers in their tracks as they were about to negotiate the steps to the back of the ambulance. He lifted the blanket covering Ilie Popescu’s face and nodded at Milne.

  The gypsy king gave the corpse a casual glance, looked back at the cop and shook his head.

  Not one of ours, his expression said.

  Who was it, then? Mickey asked himself.

  A uniformed officer pushed Mickey’s head down as he climbed into the back seat of the unmarked CID car.

  ‘OK, son. Careful,’ Mickey said, impatiently.

  As the car headed away from the scene, Mickey remarked to Colin Marsden that he had been expecting a Chief Inspector at least.

  ‘I’m acting DCI,’ said Marsden. ‘My governor’s on secondment to the Home Office. Some working party on turning a blind eye to drug dealers,’ he added.

  ‘Sounds as if you don’t approve, son,’ Mickey observed.

  ‘I neither approve nor disapprove. I just go along with it. I do my job. I’m not a politician. I’m a thief-taker, like my dad.’

  ‘And I’m not a thief.’

  ‘No, but you are a killer.’

  ‘Self-defence.’

  ‘That’s for someone else to decide.’

  The car swung into the yard of the local nick. Mickey was escorted inside to the custody suite.

  ‘Who have we got here then, Colin?’ asked the sergeant, not looking up.

  ‘Evening, Ted,’ said Mickey. He and the sergeant went way back.

  ‘Mickey, what the fuck are you doing here?’

  ‘Little local difficulty, Ted.’

  ‘That shooting. It was you.’

  ‘Sorry to interrupt this little reunion,’ said Marsden. ‘If it’s all right with you, Ted, I’d like to book the prisoner in.’

  ‘Of course, guv,’ said the sergeant. ‘Sorry. Full name?’

  ‘Michael Edward French,’ said Mickey.

  ‘What’s the charge?’ asked the sergeant.

  ‘Murder,’ said Marsden.