The Hand of God

by James Craig

  James Craig has worked as a journalist and consultant for more than thirty years. He lives in central London with his family. His previous Inspector Carlyle novels, London Calling; Never Apologise, Never Explain; Buckingham Palace Blues; The Circus and Then We Die are also available from Constable & Robinson.

  For more information visit www.james-craig.co.uk, or follow him on Twitter: @byjamescraig.

  Praise for London Calling

  ‘A cracking read.’ BBC Radio 4

  ‘Fast paced and very easy to get quickly lost in.’

  Lovereading.com

  Praise for Never Apologise, Never Explain

  ‘Pacy and entertaining.’ The Times

  ‘Engaging, fast paced . . . a satisfying modern British crime novel.’ Shots

  ‘Never Apologise, Never Explain is as close as you can get to the heartbeat of London. It may even cause palpitations when reading.’ It’s A Crime! Reviews

  Inspector John Carlyle

  Novels

  London Calling

  Never Apologise, Never Explain

  Buckingham Palace Blues

  The Circus

  Then We Die

  Short stories

  The Enemy Within

  What Dies Inside

  AN INSPECTOR CARLYLE NOVELLA

  The Hand of God

  Constable & Robinson Ltd.

  55–56 Russell Square

  London WC1B 4HP

  www.constablerobinson.com

  First published in the UK by C&R Crime,

  an imprint of Constable & Robinson Ltd., 2013

  Copyright © James Craig, 2013

  The right of James Craig to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

  All rights reserved. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to actual events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  A copy of the British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data is available from the British Library

  ISBN: 978-1-47210-744-2 (ebook)

  Cover copyright © Constable & Robinson

  It is only in misery that we recognise the hand of God leading men to good.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Acknowledgements

  This is the third short story featuring London policeman John Carlyle. It follows the publication of five full-length Carlyle novels, London Calling; Never Apologise, Never Explain; Buckingham Palace Blues; The Circus; and Then We Die.

  A sixth Inspector Carlyle novel will appear soon.

  The Hand of God is set in London in the mid-1980s. It recounts one of Carlyle’s early experiences as a young copper and fills in some of the backstory that is touched on in London Calling.

  I would like to thank Michael Doggart for his comments and his support in getting the job done, along with Krystyna Green, Rob Nichols and all of the team at Constable & Robinson. Thank you too to Kevin Curran for his careful reading of the manuscript and his astute observations. Particular thanks go to the real Martin Palmer, who has put up with the antics of his fictional counterpart with considerable fortitude and good grace.

  As always, my greatest thanks go to Catherine and Cate. This story is for them.

  1

  London, 1986

  ‘Welcome to the shittiest estate in London.’

  Carlyle looked at his fellow constable and grunted.

  The officer stuck out a meaty paw. ‘You new here?’ he asked, his accent betraying Midlands roots.

  ‘Nah.’ With some reluctance, Carlyle shook his hand. ‘I’ve been working out of the Borough High Street station for almost a year now. It’s my first time in the Castle Vale, though.’ He looked up nervously, half expecting to see a piece of masonry being dropped on his head from the aerial walkway above.

  ‘You can relax.’ His colleague grinned. ‘The bad lads won’t be out of bed yet. They don’t come out before dark.’

  That’s reassuring, Carlyle thought grimly. Castle Vale had been built on a thirty-acre site south of Elephant and Castle in the 1960s. With almost 2,800 flats, housing 11,000 people, it was, at the time, the biggest housing estate in Europe. In 1972, when the first tenants moved in, it was described as the most ambitious housing scheme in London. Five years later, by the time the final units had been completed, the place was already crumbling. On a visit to the site, the Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer famously bemoaned how the design ‘actually encouraged people to commit crime’. A geographer from King’s College had listed fifteen ‘design disadvantages’ conducive to antisocial behaviour. Not needing the analysis, postmen, milkmen, taxi drivers and doctors routinely refused to enter the estate. Unable to accept that it should just be torn down, politicians began tinkering at the edges, looking for a quick fix in the manner of a blind squirrel hoping to find a sustaining nut. The government’s Urban Renewal Unit continued to throw money at the problem, installing security features such as video entry phones and better lighting. Despite all the window-dressing, the place still looked very much like its nickname – ‘Hell’s waiting room’.

  Tearing his gaze from the pedway, Carlyle looked his newly discovered colleague up and down. Podgy and pasty-faced, he looked to be Carlyle’s age, or maybe a year or so older. He tried to recall seeing the officer previously, but his mind came up blank. ‘I haven’t clocked you before.’

  ‘I’ve not been around for a while – been on the sick.’

  ‘Ah.’ Carlyle knew better than to enquire any further. In his experience, police officers were often very fragile creatures; sickness was common and absenteeism rife.

  ‘I’m Dudley, by the way. Dudley Stockbridge.’

  ‘John Carlyle.’

  ‘Very nice to meet you, John,’ Stockbridge said amiably. ‘Shame it’s just you and me.’

  Carlyle grunted his agreement. There was no way that the two of them should have been left deep in enemy territory on their own. However, he knew better than to hope for reinforcements. As usual, the Metropolitan Police was overspent and under-resourced; there was nothing anyone could do about that. Apart from anything else, the bitter News International dispute, across the river at Wapping, was soaking up hundreds of thousands of police man hours and blowing already fragile budgets to smithereens. Over recent months, Carlyle had spent his fair share of Saturday nights in the company of 6,000 angry newspaper workers as they tried to stop the procession of lorries leaving Rupert Murdoch’s grim bunker with the next morning’s newspapers. Having already experienced what had happened to the miners, Carlyle had no doubt as to the ultimate outcome. The march of new technology, backed by the iron fist of the state, would prove invincible. The days of hot metal and Fleet Street were gone, never to return. Now it was just a question of how long it would be until the print unions’ protest collapsed.

  ‘Where were you before Southwark?’ enquired Stockbridge.

  ‘I moved from Shepherd’s Bush,’ Carlyle mumbled, not really interested in making conversation with his fellow plod. ‘Just over a year ago.’

  ‘Any good?’

  ‘Yeah. Not bad.’ Despite what Dudley had said, Carlyle found his gaze drifting upwards as he kept a wary eye out for incoming missiles. In his relatively short police career, he had already felt what it was like to take a half-brick to the back of the head, and he had no
desire to repeat the experience. Standing in a narrow courtyard, they were vulnerable to attack from all sides. Many of the Castle’s residents took a perverse pride in living on the most violent estate in London’s most violent borough. Always a tinderbox, the place had exploded two days earlier when an attempted arrest had gone badly wrong. A woman had been shot by officers looking for her two sons in connection with the robbery of a sub-post office. As news of the shooting spread, residents armed with rubble, bin lids, hammers and knives had fought with police for more than six hours. Fighting had continued the following night, with rioters adding petrol bombs and baseball bats to their armoury. Shots had been fired from an unidentified weapon. A dozen cars had been torched and the local off-licence looted. A TV cameraman had been killed instantly when he was hit on the head with a breezeblock, less than twenty feet from where Carlyle now stood. Another forty-six people had been treated for a range of injuries and there had been more than two hundred arrests. The woman, Carole Lovelock, was in a critical but stable condition in Guy’s Hospital; according to the newspapers, she had been left paralysed from the waist down. The sons were still at large.

  In the last twenty-four hours, a tense calm had descended on the Castle. For fear of sparking off more violence – and running up additional overtime costs – the police presence had been quickly wound down. Stockbridge and Carlyle had been placed outside number 32 Goscote Way, Mrs Lovelock’s maisonette, to keep looters at bay and also on the off chance that Gareth and Roger Lovelock might reappear.

  The upsurge in civil unrest was not totally unconnected to the weather. After an interminable delay, summer had finally arrived in the city with a bang. Temperatures had jumped above thirty degrees, with the promise of more to come. Even in the shade, the atmosphere was stifling. Yawning, Carlyle watched a skinny dog wander through the courtyard. The mutt, some kind of mongrel, eyed the policemen blankly as it cocked its leg on a pile of rubbish, finishing its business before casually wandering off and disappearing into the shadows.

  Pulling a white handkerchief from his pocket, Stockbridge huffed and puffed as he mopped his brow, looking every inch like a character from an Ealing comedy. Placing the hanky back in his trousers, he jerked a tired thumb towards the door behind them. ‘How long do you think they’re gonna keep us standing around here?’

  ‘Dunno.’ Carlyle tried to raise some spit, but his mouth was too dry.

  ‘I mean,’ Stockbridge continued, ‘it’s not as if the Lovelock boys would be stupid enough to come back, is it?’

  ‘Dunno.’ Carlyle shrugged. As a cop, he had quickly come to realise that the sheer stupidity of your average criminal was never to be underestimated.

  ‘Not when they know that we’re after them.’

  ‘Stranger things have happened.’ Out of the corner of his eye, Carlyle saw a figure appear from his right. Head down, face hidden behind the brim of a Millwall baseball cap, the man slouched towards them, only looking up when he was barely fifteen feet from the front door of number 32.

  Oh fuck . . .

  Stockbridge tensed. ‘Which one is it?’ he asked, as the boy turned on his heel and began legging it back whence he had come.

  How the fuck should I know? Carlyle thought. They’re supposed to be identical fucking twins. ‘Does it matter?’ he hissed, as he sprang forward. ‘Call it in.’ Leaving Stockbridge fumbling with his radio, he gave chase.

  Arms pumping, he sprinted across the courtyard, ignoring the burning sensation that had blossomed almost immediately in his chest. The chatter from Stockbridge’s radio faded to nothing as he rounded a corner and found himself at the foot of a gentle ramp leading to the walkway above. Although never much of an athlete, an adrenalin-fuelled Carlyle was gratified to notice that he was moving faster than his quarry. It was clear that the youth was already struggling with the exertion of the chase. That’s the problem with kids today, he thought cheerily, they just don’t do enough bloody exercise. Calculating the narrowing gap to now be less than ten yards, he upped his pace. ‘C’mere, you bastard!’ he shouted, affecting his best Jack Regan impersonation. ‘You’re fucking nicked.’

  Grunting with the effort, Carlyle planted his right foot firmly down. As he pushed forward, he felt it slide away from underneath him. Argh! Unable to correct his balance, he careered head first into a concrete wall and landed in a dazed heap on the ramp.

  For a moment there was silence, followed by the sound of a dry cackle from somewhere above his head. Then came a hawking noise, and what felt like a fat raindrop landed on his head, accompanied by the mocking cry, ‘Ha! Fuck you, copper.’

  At least it wasn’t a brick, Carlyle thought, as he used the sleeve of his uniform to wipe the phlegm from his hair. Satisfied that he’d done the best he could, he lay back and contemplated the small patch of blue sky visible above the walkway as he took stock of his injuries. There was a gash on his forehead, near the hairline, and his right arm ached, but it wasn’t serious. He would have a few bruises but nothing seemed to be broken. Shuffling himself into a sitting position, he saw Stockbridge appear at the foot of the ramp.

  ‘What happened?’

  Carlyle tilted his chin in the direction of the freshly minted dog shit that was now smeared all over the concrete. ‘I went arse over tit, didn’t I?’

  Stockbridge began to grin but quickly thought better of it. From the direction of the Old Kent Road came the sound of police sirens, getting closer at a rate of knots. ‘Backup’s on the way.’

  A bit fucking late for that, Carlyle groused. Holding up a hand, he levered himself an inch off the floor. ‘Help me up,’ he commanded wearily. ‘We’d better go and tell them what’s happened, I suppose.’

  2

  Dressed for the occasion, in a tweed jacket, checked shirt, brown cords and a pair of the most sensible brogues, Martin Palmer stepped off the 11.18 from Paddington and breathed in deeply, enjoying the warm countryside air. It was a lovely day to be out of the office. And out of the city. Loosening his tie, he allowed himself a moment to take in his surroundings. ‘What a fine spot,’ he murmured, watching the handful of his fellow passengers who had similarly disembarked make their way out of the station before letting his gaze drift upwards, to take in the spire of St Mary’s parish church. ‘What a fine spot indeed.’

  With the platform emptied, he sauntered slowly towards the station exit, careful to let his fellow travellers disperse before stepping through the ticket office and heading outside. Ignoring the hopeful waiting taxi driver, Palmer took a left down what passed for the main road, heading into the village proper. Keeping to his leisurely pace, he made his way past a primary school, a post office, a butcher’s and a corner shop. Apart from a bright red Mini that roared past, its aged driver squinting through the screen in search of oncoming traffic, he did not encounter another soul. It was the middle of a working day and the streets were deserted.

  A hundred yards or so further on, the road forked in two. The visitor paused to get his bearings under the branches of a massive oak tree. It was fiercely hot, even in the shade. He wiped a bead of sweat from his brow with the back of his hand as he wondered about the wisdom of his choice of such a heavy jacket. Standards of dress, however, were important. After giving the matter some careful thought, he resisted the temptation to take off the garment and slip it over his arm. From the far distance came a low, insistent rumble, and he imagined that it might be the gentle roar of artillery on Salisbury Plain. Military manoeuvres. A bit like what I’m on. Laughing at his own joke, he considered the road once again. Deciding to take the right fork, he began humming the opening lines of ‘It’s a Long Way to Tipperary’ as he resumed his journey.

  After walking for another minute or so, he came to a rusting signpost sticking drunkenly out of the grass verge at a forty-five-degree angle. Its black and white paint had peeled off in large patches and it pointed off in the direction of a dusty field on the other side of the road. ‘Bingo!’ Palmer smiled; for once, it looked like he had chosen the r
ight option. He assumed that Birinus Way had been named after the saint who had reputedly converted the locals to Christianity back in the seventh century; it was one of the few facts that an expensive public school education had managed to plant in his brain. Presumably it was the narrow lane that led off to the side of the field, rather than the field itself. Glancing over his shoulder to check on the non-existent traffic, he jogged over to its entrance, quickly disappearing behind a large hedge.

  Somewhat incongruously, a row of six two-storey redbrick houses had been built in a shallow hollow about three hundred yards from the main road, looking out across a field containing a small copse of poplar trees. As he approached, Palmer scanned the buildings. Each property appeared well looked after, with small, tidy gardens both back and front, consisting of neatly mowed lawns surrounded by modest flower beds backing up to a low stone wall. Further back stood a line of small garages, each with the same red-painted door. All were shut and padlocked. Next to the nearest garage was a wooden stile giving access to the field beyond.

  A line of washing hung limply in front of the closest house; otherwise there was no sign of life. ‘Good,’ mumbled Palmer, patting the reassuring weight in his jacket pocket. ‘That’s perfect.’

  The house he was visiting was the last in the row. Stepping through the open gate, Palmer walked casually up the path and went round the side of the house, heading towards a small garden shed that stood at the bottom of the back garden. As he approached, he noticed a small wooden sign hanging from the door handle by a piece of wire. The writing was small and he had to bend down and squint to see what it said.

  Gone fishing.

  ‘Excuse me? Can I help you?’

  Straightening himself up, Palmer turned to face a stern-looking woman, about his own height, with high cheekbones and lively blue eyes under a bob of white hair. She was wearing a floral-print dress, its short sleeves showing off her tanned arms to good effect. In her right hand she carried a wicker basket containing a selection of groceries. Sticking out of the top he noticed a packet of Penguin biscuits and licked his lips.