by Alex Howard
Fuck, thought Huss for the second time that day.
13
Marcus Hinds gazed out of the grimy window at Bethnal Green High Street. Clifford Hinds, his uncle, joined him, resting his powerful fingers on the window sill. Marcus looked at the heavy gothic lettering on the top joints of the fingers, CLIFF HINDS. When he’d been a child he had wanted his name on his hands like Uncle Cliff and had been annoyed when his dad had pointed out Marcus had six letters.
Marcus wondered how many people had managed to read the message on Uncle Cliff’s knuckles before they had rearranged their face. The last image they would have: the script on his skin as his large fists battered them into unconsciousness.
Nowadays, Uncle Cliff, to Marcus, had become simply Cliff and his gut was massive. His longish hair was still there but he had to wear a pork pie hat at a jaunty angle to conceal his bald patch. But his eyes were as bright and full of amusement as ever and the air of latent violence that hung around him like aftershave was still as strong as ever. Sixty-five now and still as scary as when he’d been in his prime. Right now, though, his eyes were troubled.
‘There’s a warrant out for your arrest, old son, murder.’
‘Shit.’ He turned and paced Cliff’s front room. It didn’t take long. He had a small, neat flat above a shop opposite the Museum of Childhood. If you leaned out of the window you could see the York Hall, home of British boxing. Heavy traffic rumbled outside.
Cliff had been in touch with old friends from Oxford who had police contacts. What he had learned wasn’t good.
Now he was looking at the screen of his phone. ‘You didn’t knife him, did you?’ His tone was light, conversational, the kind of way you might ask someone if they’d remembered to buy milk.
‘Do what?’ Marcus was puzzled. ‘No, of course not. I booted him down the stairs. It was self-defence.’
Cliff looked up from his phone at his brother’s son, twenty-five now but looking lost and worried, like a small child almost. He sighed. This wasn’t supposed to happen. Marcus was the golden boy of the family, beating the shit out of people was for those with limited options like himself and his brother, Paul. Paul had wanted Marcus to be the editor of the Guardian.
‘The Old Bill say he died of being stabbed in the leg, femoral artery, he bled out.’
Marcus raised his eyes heavenwards and shook his head wordlessly.
‘You got a drink in here?’
‘In the kitchen.’
Cliff heard a pop as Marcus uncorked the Bell’s and he came back into the room with a tumbler full of Scotch. He sat down heavily on the sofa.
‘Do you want a drink, Cliff?’
The older man shook his head. ‘Nah, mate, I’m fine. I’m on tablets for me heart, have to look after the old ticker.’
Marcus nodded silently. ‘I’m being fitted up.’
‘By that anarchist mob?’ Cliff rubbed his chin thoughtfully.
Marcus nodded. ‘By Eleuthera, yeah.’
‘They’d top one of their own just to fit you up?’ Cliff cocked his head questioningly.
‘Yeah, it’s the sort of thing they do, they’re idealists.’
Cliff gave a bark of laughter. ‘Funny old ideals.’
‘Yep.’ Marcus took another drink of Scotch. ‘Probably Georgie’s idea.’
‘That bird you were shagging?’
‘Mm-hm.’ Marcus nodded and drank some more.
‘Well, Marky, you can certainly pick them. Mind you, lovely tits.’ Cliff had met Georgie when he’d come up to Oxford to visit Marcus. The boy had thought that the anarchist girl would be blown away by Cliff’s anti-authoritarian record, that and his disadvantaged, proletarian background. They had hated each other on sight.
‘She’s no anarchist,’ said Cliff, ‘she’s a fucking intellectual snob.’
‘That’s true,’ said Marcus, with feeling.
‘Why would they want to do that anyway?’ Cliff asked. ‘Fit you up?’
‘Because they found out I was a journalist and going to write about them. They’re in bed with a Muslim terrorist group, like IS, Al-Akhdaar. They want to kill a German politician who’s over here.’
‘Oh,’ said Cliff. He shook his head. They had all been so proud of Marcus, still were, the first Hinds to go to university and one of the few members of the family not to be on the wrong side of the law. Who could possibly have imagined it could end up as dangerous as this?
Dangerous and stupid.
Not the way to get to run the Guardian.
‘Why are the anarchists involved?’ asked Cliff.
Marcus continued, ‘Al-Akhdaar don’t have any operatives in Britain, so they’ve contracted the job out to Eleuthera. Al-Akhdaar are bankrolled by IS, they’ve got loads of money and, obviously, loads of weaponry. Eleuthera need both, it’s their chance for glory.’
Cliff shrugged. It was all a bit beyond him.
‘Well, old son, they’re taking fucking liberties, muppets.’ He shook his head. In his youth he’d have got a few trustworthy mates, people like Beard and Malcolm Anderson, and given the anarchists a lesson they would never forget. But he was too old now, like a declawed mangy lion.
‘So, what do you think I should do?’ asked Marcus.
Cliff rubbed his bald patch, he did that these days as a sign he was thinking. ‘Turn yourself in,’ he said simply.
Marcus looked at him in surprise. It was the last thing he thought he’d hear. ‘Do you really think so?’
Cliff laughed loudly. ‘Course I fucking don’t.’ He shook his head at the absurdity of the idea. ‘No, you’re going to go and stay with a bloke I know, I was a mate of his dad’s, cos the Old Bill will be round here soonish looking for you, and I’ll get a message to that woman copper you think you can trust and arrange a meet. You can put your side of the story. That’ll help to a limited extent. I’ll arrange a place to meet that the Old Bill won’t dare raid to get their hands on you.’
Marcus looked at his uncle and felt a surge of affection tinged with relief. It was a huge weight off his shoulders to have someone else deciding what he should and shouldn’t do.
Hopefully the files on the memory stick would make it abundantly clear to Melinda Huss the kind of people that Eleuthera were. The information there would prevent the Schneider assassination and with luck all charges against him would be quietly dropped.
His head throbbed but he took another mouthful of Scotch. It was easily the worst day of his life. He was beginning to get some kind of insight into the stresses that Uncle Cliff had faced throughout his life: extreme violence, someone out to get you, and the very real danger of a lengthy prison sentence.
Another day at the office for Uncle Cliff, but not for him.
There was a ring on the doorbell. Marcus looked up in alarm. Cliff made a placatory gesture.
‘It’s Mick the Beard, he’s your driver. I’ll wait here for PC Plod. They’ll go to your mum’s first, then here.’
He went into the hall and Marcus heard voices, then a burly figure in leathers and holding two motorbike helmets followed Cliff into the room. He had a shaved head and a long, curly brown beard streaked with grey. He looked tough and evil in equal measure. Like Cliff he’d been around the block.
‘Mick, this is Marcus.’
They shook hands.
‘Better head off now, Beard,’ Cliff said, ‘before we get company.’
The old biker nodded. ‘Put this on,’ he ordered Marcus.
Marcus took the helmet. ‘Where are we going?’
‘Up north.’
‘North?’ queried Marcus. Manchester? Scotland?
‘Edmonton.’ That was about three miles away. ‘The Three Compasses.’
Marcus’s heart sank. ‘Is that...?’
‘Yep,’ said Cliff, grinning. ‘Today’s your day for meeting gangsters.’
Reluctantly Marcus pulled the helmet on and followed the broad back out of the flat and down the stairs.
Just when he thought his day c
ouldn’t get any worse.
The Three Compasses. Home of Dave Anderson, head of one of north London’s leading crime families.
14
The demonstration outside the Union Hall in Islington was smaller than Hanlon was expecting but much more unpleasant. She had done her share of demo policing but they had been for big events, attracting thousands of protestors. This was very low-key. The fact that Schneider was unknown, the leader of a small, albeit controversial party, from a state few people could find on a map, certainly helped.
There were maybe twenty or so protesters with slogans such as Smash Fascism, Schneider = Hitler, Racism, Nein Danke. They stood pushed up on the pavement under a watery autumn sun inconveniencing passers-by.
‘There he is!’ A cry went up as Schneider and his people climbed out the black Range Rover that had been loaned to them. The chants and abuse increased in volume.
Gower had said that he had two armed protection officers ready and waiting, should the need arise. Hanlon found this slightly pointless, what was she supposed to do if someone just, for example, shot Schneider? Stand and wait for them to do something?
But, as always, the immediacy of action drove any worries or doubts from her mind. Gower had told her they’d be photographing faces to compare them against the database of known violent political activists. Again, she thought this would probably come in useful only after the event. It wouldn’t help right now.
An egg hurled by a screaming girl demonstrator brushed past Hanlon’s head and exploded over the bodywork of the car.
Hübler and Schneider followed Hanlon, Schneider with a hard, tight smile fixed on to his face as they marched toward the doors of the venue.
There were about half a dozen police in hi-vis jackets controlling the protesters, more than adequate to stop any direct attack, but there was obviously nothing they could do about the abuse.
‘Fascists!’
‘Nazi bitch, I hope you get raped!’
‘Fascist whore!’ This one directed at Hanlon by a pretty dark-haired girl with a pierced nose and green streaks in her hair.
Most of the abuse was directed at Christiane Hübler and Hanlon and most of it was graphic threats of rape, a lot of it from women. They seemed to hate them more than Schneider.
Hanlon was used to being abused by mobs from her early days as a uniform in riot control or football duties, but this was different. There was a visceral hatred that twisted the faces of the protestors into snarling animal masks of aggression.
As they neared the steps to the venue a girl and a man broke through past the police and ran at Hanlon and Schneider.
Two of the uniforms grabbed the man, who was shouting and kicking, trying to shake off the burly officers hanging on to him, one on each arm, as he shouted at Schneider.
‘Fascist scum!’
He was white, with dirty brown matted dreadlocks, blue and green tribal tattoos visible on his neck.
The girl was the one that she had noticed earlier, the one with the streaks of colour in her very dark, short hair. Hanlon noticed that she was startlingly attractive. She blocked Hanlon’s path and drew her head back. Momentarily Hanlon thought she was going to headbutt her but then she darted her head forward and spat in Hanlon’s face.
Hanlon twisted her body, dropping her left shoulder down, and the spittle struck her right shoulder. With the two police wrestling with the girl’s accomplice and the general confusion of the situation, Hanlon retaliated. Before she really knew what she was doing, she had straightened up and driven her balled left fist in a very short vicious hook into the solar plexus of the girl. The spittle landing on her jacket had enraged her. It disgusted her.
The girl doubled up in pain then looked at Hanlon with an expression of almost feral rage.
‘She assaulted me,’ she screamed, pointing at Hanlon. ‘Arrest her!’
Hanlon looked at her more closely now. Her eyes had an almost almond shape to them and her accent was genteel Scottish, she guessed Edinburgh. She was expensively dressed in a cashmere jacket and scarf, her skirt was very short and she had excellent legs. Her boots were high quality suede.
Fortunately for Hanlon there was no press and the attention of the protestors and their ubiquitous camera phones was mainly on the bald guy and the police.
‘Pig scum!’
‘Smash the fascists!’
‘Come on.’ Christiane Hübler pulled her arm, her voice urgent. ‘Inside.’
She practically dragged Hanlon into the building and the doors closed behind them as another couple of eggs smashed on the glass followed by a dull thud as a bag of flour landed.
Schneider calmly wiped some spit off his cheek with a tissue and binned it. He smiled and waved at the protestors through the doors.
He turned to Hanlon. ‘I saw what you did’ – he wagged a finger – ‘naughty, naughty. Don’t get me wrong, I’m delighted, but we have to be seen to behave. Now, if this were Saxony or Hamburg, well, things would be different, but please,’ he smiled to show he wasn’t really cross, ‘no attacking anyone. Well, not unless I ask you to.’
A fresh wave of inaudible abuse burst from the protestors outside. He looked at the mess on the door.
‘If you added sugar, you could make a cake,’ he said, pleasantly.
A couple of security men from the Union Hall took up positions by the door as three men wearing suits appeared in the lobby to greet them.
‘Hi, I’m Paul Samuels,’ said one of the suits, shaking Schneider’s hand. ‘Let me take you inside, get you freshened up. We kick off in about an hour, hopefully that lot will go away now you’re inside...’
He took Schneider by the arm and they drifted away, leaving Hanlon and Hübler in the lobby.
Hanlon looked at Hübler who was staring at her in irritation.
‘If you attack the demonstrators you play their game. You of all people should know that.’ She shook her head. ‘It was very unprofessional of you.’
‘It was self-defence,’ countered Hanlon. ‘She could have had a weapon.’
Hübler smiled bitterly. ‘Well, I suppose so. But welcome to our world, DCI Hanlon, you’ll have to get used to a lot of abuse, I’m afraid.’
Hanlon thought, actually just now was almost certainly the high point of the difficulties that she’d foreseen. The House of Commons lunch would be a breeze and then he’d be off to Oxford and out of everyone’s hair.
‘Don’t worry,’ said Hanlon, ‘I’m used to people not liking me.’
‘I’m sure that’s the case,’ said Hübler acidly, ‘but at least Wolf and I have the consolation that history is on our side, as is the side of right.’
Hanlon’s chilly, grey-eyed gaze met hers.
‘Me too,’ she said.
15
Marcus Hinds was dropped off outside the Three Compasses in Edmonton in the north of the capital.
The pub had an evil reputation. It belonged to the Andersons, who were one of the big London crime families. The building itself looked innocuous. It was a small whitewashed building standing on the corner of a cul-de-sac. The terraced houses nearby had a forlorn look about them. Paint was peeling off the windows, the small gardens were choked with weeds. They were never going to be gentrified as long as the Andersons had the Three Compasses. Two shaven-headed men in Crombies stood outside the door.
Marcus Hinds was not unaware of the irony of his situation. As a freelance writer, he was standing outside tabloid gold. He could earn a year’s salary with the story:
Inside the belly of the beast, an exposé of the headquarters of organized crime. It was, however, a story that would never get written. He would never dare. He knew of a journalist who had offended Dave Anderson. Hard to type with all your fingers broken.
Marcus Hinds approached the men on the door, they looked at him suspiciously.
‘Sorry, mate, we’re closed.’
Their faces and expressions were those of hardened street-fighters, their stubbled heads reflected the chilly
late morning sun.
‘I’m expected,’ said Hinds.
‘What’s the name?’ A hard, mistrustful look.
‘Marcus Hinds.’
One of the doormen disappeared inside whilst the other, arms folded, regarded Hinds with wary watchfulness. Hinds slightly puzzled him. The bouncer was like a dog who is faced with a breed he has never encountered before. Hinds was educated, by the sounds of his voice, yet he had a street quality that the other man recognized. You could see at a glance that he could handle himself. He was neither fish nor fowl.
His companion reappeared.
‘Follow me, mate.’
All affability now. Now that Hinds had been vouched for.
Hinds did so. The front bar was deserted. He walked behind the narrow, powerful shoulders of the doorman through to the back bar.
‘Marcus Hinds,’ announced his escort, like some odd toastmaster at a wedding.
Inside the room were two men at a table, both seated. Hinds needed no introductions. His journalist’s eye ran over the place, noting its salient features for the well-paid exclusive story that he would never write.
The drawn chintz curtains, the pool table in the corner, the green baize suspiciously stained, three, no, four small circular tables with heavy wood and ornate metal frames. The wall-mounted lights were shaped to look like candles with old lampshades that had yellowed with time. A swirly, busy carpet, an ice bucket on the bar advertising Gordon’s and a lamp next to it designed to look like a pineapple.
It was the kind of pub only old men would drink in, a pub unchanged essentially since the early seventies.
Now he transferred his attention to the couple at the table. One man, tall, thin, grey-haired, in a beautifully cut dark grey two-piece suit, a narrow downturned gash of a mouth like a shark’s. Morris Jones, Dave Anderson’s minder. His eyes were half closed. Marcus had heard he had quite a big heroin habit. The rumour was true but the drugs had neither slowed him down nor improved his character.