Kid Alone

by Simon Mason

  Singh thought about the chief’s famed viciousness to officers who had failed in their duty. Singh himself had suffered a duties downgrade, of course, but there were far worse punishments: transfer, suspension, discharge, even prosecution. He thought of the headlines he’d seen as he drove into work that morning: POLICE BEAT MY SON! COP HORROR! INJUSTICE! Photographs of Jamal’s ruined shop, the bags of toys found in his storage facility, and Khalid’s ripely bruised face had been appearing on internet sites since the night before. Dowell had been forced to host an impromptu press conference to explain certain “unfortunate occurrences” in the police investigation. Singh guessed that the mayor had been asking the chief awkward questions.

  He did not move as he thought these things. He remained standing to attention, listening to the silence in Admin beyond, as if, like him, everyone else was waiting for the chief to return, to hear what he would say.

  As he stood there in the silence his phone rang. Startled, he looked at it, failed to recognize the number, and after a moment’s hesitation answered it in a low and wary voice.

  “Singh here.”

  “Dude! I’m on my way. But, just so you know, I’ve got to be really quick this time, so no small talk, okay?”

  “Garvie?”

  “I’ll be there in, like, five. Can you meet me this time, save me having to bust through the lobby?”

  Singh was no longer standing to attention. He hunched over his phone, cupping his mouth with his hand, whispering. “Garvie, listen to me, this is not a convenient time.”

  “Don’t I know it. If I’m not in my math tutorial class in an hour my mother’s going to get a buzz from that bitch Perkins.”

  Singh peered anxiously through the office window for any sign of the chief. “Not convenient for me, I mean,” he hissed.

  “Yeah. But I’ve got some information. And I think you’re going to like it.”

  “Garvie, listen—”

  “I’ve found the link between Magee and Pyotor.”

  Now Singh hesitated. “Are you sure?”

  “Nailed on, man. Magee was seen with Pyotor up by Jamal’s a few days before Pyotor got shot.”

  “By who?” he said at last.

  “Vinnie.”

  “Vinnie? The wino?”

  “And old man Jamal. He saw Magee cuffing the kid. Some sort of argument. It’s the link you’ve been looking for.”

  As he stood listening, Singh caught the curtain-swishy sound of elevator doors opening on the far side of the open-plan.

  “I have to go,” he said. “Do not come here,” he added.

  “I might have more by the time I get to you. I’ve got feelers out with a Polish contact of mine. Like I say, I’ll see you in a tick.”

  Singh was dimly aware of a long-coated figure approaching across the open-plan.

  “Stay away from me,” he hissed into the phone. “Do not come anywhere near the building.”

  He switched off his phone and pushed it into his pocket as the office door opened and the chief walked in. He stood to attention again, feeling a bead of sweat squeeze out of his turban and trickle down his forehead.

  The chief glanced at him without expression, almost without recognition, and, taking off his coat, went behind his desk and began to take papers out of his briefcase. Singh noticed that he had left the office door wide open. There was a listening silence from Admin beyond.

  After a few minutes, without looking up, the chief said, “I’m sure you’re going to give me the reasons for this fiasco.”

  Singh began to speak. In a low voice he described Khalid’s suspicious refusal to divulge the contents of his storage facility at the storage unit; he drew attention to the rumors that Khalid was involved in the drug trade; he explained how he had attempted to calm Khalid down before Khalid had returned to detention, where he had attempted to break out of the building; and he was just beginning to talk about the perhaps overenthusiastic apprehension of Khalid by the antiterrorism squad when the chief begin to speak, and he instantly fell silent.

  “The problem is not that our security forces are too zealous,” the chief said in his flat, even voice. “It is that your supposition about the contents of his storage unit was wrong, and that you compounded this mistake by allowing a situation to develop during and after your interview with the suspect. You lost control.”

  Singh swallowed and stiffened his posture.

  “Sir.”

  Slowly the chief stood and came around his desk.

  “And that you have created the opportunity for the suspect to bring a lawsuit against the force.”

  “Sir.”

  “And that you have handed Magee’s lawyers all the argument they need to secure his immediate release.”

  “Sir.”

  “And that you have enabled the media to attack our work.”

  “Sir.”

  “And that you have made a mistake greater than all these in publically bringing the reputation of the force into disrepute. About which the city mayor has just been questioning me.”

  Singh said nothing to that. There was no need, and, besides, he did not feel able to speak.

  The chief came across the room until he stood directly in front of him, his face a few centimeters from Singh’s.

  “I’d be glad to know how you think I should respond to these mistakes of yours.”

  For a moment he continued to stare into Singh’s face, then at last turned away. And—without knowing how—Singh found himself suddenly speaking.

  “Sir?”

  “Yes?” There was a faint trace of surprise in the chief’s voice.

  “Let me interview Magee.”

  There was a long pause, and when the chief spoke again his tone was incredulous.

  “After your failure with Khalid Baloch, you think you are the appropriate person to interview our chief suspect?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You are aware that he is being released within the hour, that this is our last opportunity to make progress?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And you think you are better suited to this than, for instance, Detective Inspector Dowell?”

  Singh swallowed. “Yes, sir.”

  “Why?”

  “I have new information. Just come to me.”

  “What information?”

  “We have a witness who saw Magee with Pyotor in the days before the shooting. It’s the link we’ve been looking for.”

  The chief said nothing to this. Singh went on: “Magee doesn’t know we have this information. If I can speak to him I think I can use it to good effect.”

  For a long time the chief looked at Singh as if he couldn’t decide whether to call for security or tell him to step outside and kill himself.

  “Then do it,” he said at last. “And let us both think of this as your very last chance.”

  He sat down at his desk and began to read a report.

  Singh thanked him but received no further response, and after a moment he went from the room and quickly through Admin, talking already on his phone.

  In the monitoring station for Interview Room 2, down in the basement of the building, Singh was met by Sergeant Hingley, a young policewoman with a blonde ponytail and curt features.

  “Suspect’s in place, sir,” she said. “We’re system-ready.”

  Singh nodded.

  Hingley said, “Message from Central Command. The lawyers are due to arrive any moment. They’ll keep them there as long as possible.”

  Singh looked at his watch, nodded again. “When they arrive here,” he said, “please do your best to delay them further. Every minute counts.”

  “Sir.”

  Sergeant Hingley sat at the monitoring board, put on headphones, and began to tap instructions on a laptop keypad. Adjusting his uniform, checking the alignment of his turban, Singh walked rapidly to the door at the end with the red light above it. The light changed to green, he opened it and went through, and the door swung shut behind him.
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  On the nine screens set into the monitoring-station wall, multiple images appeared of another room in which a man sat alone at a square gray table, seen from different angles. He was a tall, well-built man, trim and handsome, with wet-looking black hair combed back from his face, wearing a tight white T-shirt and blue jeans with a broad leather belt. There was a tattoo on his right forearm: a red dragon coiled into a spiral. As the door in the back of the room opened and Detective Inspector Singh appeared, he turned his head with a look of surprise and watched as Singh crossed the room and took a seat on the other side of the table.

  The man sneered, his full lips curling. When he spoke his voice was harsh, made harsher still by the poor transmission of sound by the monitoring-room speakers.

  “Last time I looked, you weren’t my lawyer.”

  “Detective Inspector Singh.”

  “I remember you, Sikh.”

  Settled in his chair, Singh put in an earpiece and spoke impassively into a microphone on the table. “With interviewee Martin Magee. Eleven fifteen. No other personnel present.”

  From an envelope he took three photographs of Pyotor Gimpel and slid them one by one across the desk. And finally he looked at Magee, who sneered again.

  Location: high-security interview room, Cornwallis Police Center, East Wing: large, nearly empty.

  Interviewer: Detective Inspector Singh: tense, quiet.

  Interviewee: Martin Magee: handsome, sneery.

  DI SINGH: You know who this is. How many times had you met him before the night of the eighth?

  MARTIN MAGEE: You obviously haven’t been on the planet long. Do you want to confer with your colleagues and have another go?

  [Silence]

  MARTIN MAGEE: You’re out of your depth, so I’ll give you a free one. I’d never met the kid. And I’ve told you all before, and you all know it. End of. Now, when’s my lawyer get here?

  DI SINGH [into the microphone]: Concluding the interview with Martin Magee. Eleven seventeen.

  MARTIN MAGEE [laughs in bewildered fashion]: Remarkable.

  DI SINGH: [retrieving photographs and putting them back into their envelope]

  MARTIN MAGEE: Last time I’ll see you, I expect, so I’ll say good-bye.

  DI SINGH [into the microphone]: Confirmation for Legal. Case ongoing on the basis of new witness statements. Bail denied.

  MARTIN MAGEE [pause]: You’re full of shit.

  DI SINGH: As you say, Martin, this might be the last time I see you, at least outside court, so good-bye. We have new witness statements confirming that you met Pyotor Gimpel several times before the night of the eighth. You’ve offered no explanation, so new charges will now be put in place and we’ll proceed to trial. Our legal department will inform your lawyer. Wait here. I’ll get someone to escort you back to your cell.

  MARTIN MAGEE: Witness! That crackerjack on the estate’s off the scale.

  DI SINGH: Yes, he is. But he’s not our witness. Our witness is Jamal Baloch, who has the store in Bulwarks Lane. I’ll leave you now.

  MARTIN MAGEE: What are you talking about? Jamal Baloch?

  DI SINGH: He remembers you well. Also remembers you talking to Pyotor Gimpel a few days prior to the eighth. And striking him. His testimony will feature in the trial. You’ll have time before then to decide how to respond in court.

  MARTIN MAGEE: This is … Wait. You don’t go anywhere till you’ve explained what you’re on about.

  DI SINGH: You want me to stay? [returning to the interview table] Detective Inspector Singh, resuming the interview with Martin Magee. Eleven twenty-one.

  MARTIN MAGEE: You’re telling me that kid outside Jamal’s, the kid I slapped, was the same one as in the storage facility? The Gimpel boy?

  DI SINGH: Yes. The boy you said you’d never seen before.

  MARTIN MAGEE: Yeah, well. [pause] It’s news to me, right?

  DI SINGH: So, you don’t deny it?

  MARTIN MAGEE: No, but—

  DI SINGH: Previously you testified under oath that you had never even seen Pyotor. Now you say you met him just a few days before he was shot. This is extraordinary, is it not? I think a jury will find it extraordinary.

  MARTIN MAGEE: You’re not listening. I had no idea it was the same kid.

  DI SINGH: Really?

  MARTIN MAGEE: Well, why the hell would I?

  DI SINGH: According to Jamal, you acted as if you knew him.

  MARTIN MAGEE: It’s a lie. Maybe I’d seen him hanging round Jamal’s, I don’t know. Maybe I’d seen him, like, once or twice. That’s all. There’s nothing else in it.

  DI SINGH: So why did you strike him?

  MARTIN MAGEE: Don’t get yourself worked up, Sikh.

  DI SINGH: Answer the question. Why?

  MARTIN MAGEE: I’m trying to remember what happened, all right? [silence] All right. It’s coming back to me. This kid, this kid I slapped, I saw him a few times up there, bothering people. Acting weird, right? That one time he comes out of the shop, comes up to me, says something like “Don’t want you here, don’t like you.” Some shit like that. Unbelievable. I just give him a slap and he went away again. Screw loose, that’s what I thought.

  DI SINGH: “Don’t want you here”? Why did he say that to you?

  MARTIN MAGEE [shrugging]: Screw loose, like I say.

  DI SINGH: It sounds like the sort of thing you would say to him.

  MARTIN MAGEE: I told you, I didn’t know who the kid was. He just came up to me.

  DI SINGH: You heard him speak. So you knew he was foreign.

  MARTIN MAGEE: I knew he was a weirdo.

  DI SINGH: You knew he was foreign and it enraged you because you are a racist.

  MARTIN MAGEE: Not that again. I’m no racist.

  DI SINGH: You hold racist views.

  MARTIN MAGEE: My views are my own.

  DI SINGH: “Don’t like you.” Why did he say that? He knew who you were. He must have seen you before, at Jamal’s.

  MARTIN MAGEE: I’ve never been in Jamal’s in my life. I go to Bulwarks Lane all the time, to the newsagent’s there, pick up stuff. I live here! I use the sidewalks. I breathe the air. You going to charge me with that?

  [Silence]

  MARTIN MAGEE: Listen, you’ve got this all wrong. I’m starting to get the picture now. Yeah. You got nothing. Like all this racist shit. Just lies from people who don’t know any better. So I’d seen the kid before? Yeah, if this Jamal wants to say so. I didn’t make the connection, but okay. I must have seen him once or twice in the street. So what? Means nothing. Truth is, I didn’t recognize him at the storage facility lying there covered in blood. Why would I? It was a shock to see anyone there, let alone a kid in his school uniform. I’ve told you all this before. I went in, I saw the kid, I heard you coming, and I cleared off. I didn’t hang about going, Oh, I wonder who this is, he seems a bit familiar, do I recognize him from somewhere? If that’s what you think you must be mental. No jury’ll take notice of that shit. You got nothing at all.

  DI SINGH [pause]: I put it to you that you were enraged by Pyotor’s behavior outside Jamal’s and decided to teach him a lesson.

  MARTIN MAGEE: I taught him a lesson by giving him a slap. He wasn’t worth no more.

  DI SINGH: I put it to you that you were shocked and humiliated to be spoken to like that by someone you assumed was an immigrant.

  MARTIN MAGEE: Didn’t surprise me at all.

  DI SINGH: That you made a plan to punish the boy.

  MARTIN MAGEE: What plan?

  DI SINGH: That you lured him to the estate on the night of the eighth.

  MARTIN MAGEE: What? How?

  DI SINGH: And that you lost your temper and killed him.

  MARTIN MAGEE [laughing]: With what? All this is unraveling now, isn’t it? You’re just pissing in the wind.

  [Silence]

  MARTIN MAGEE: Listen, if this is all you’ve got, you got a problem and you know it. Soon as my lawyer gets here he’s going to take care of it.

 
DI SINGH: This conversation isn’t over. [Suddenly silent; hand up to his earpiece, listening]

  MARTIN MAGEE: I think it is. You’ve run out of time and ideas. You got nothing left at all. I’ll see you on the streets, Sikh.

  Sergeant Hingley’s voice continued to come through Singh’s earpiece. “Sir,” she was saying, “you wanted me to let you know when the lawyer arrived. He reached the center fifteen minutes ago, and Central Command has just called to say they can’t hold him any longer. Security’s escorting him over. He’ll be here any moment. In fact, I think this is them coming in now.”

  Magee leaned back in his chair, his feet up on the desk, watching Singh. He began to laugh.

  “Thing is,” he said, “I’m innocent. That’s what you don’t get.”

  Ignoring him, Singh picked up his envelope of photographs and spoke in a brief murmur into his microphone: “Detective Inspector Singh, concluding the interview with Martin Magee. Eleven thirty-six.”

  Magee’s face shone.

  “Think I’m a racist? Just lies. Think I’d kill a kid? I love kids. Another thing”—he stopped smiling, leaned toward Singh, and lowered his voice—“I ever meet you again on the street and it’s fair and proper, the outcome’ll be different. You listening?”

  “No,” Singh said.

  He got up and Magee laughed again. “I better get ready to meet my lawyer, then.”

  As if on cue, the door to the interrogation room swung open and Magee turned, chuckling. His face fell.

  “Who the hell’s this?” he said.

  “It’s not Anton Schnopper, is it?” Garvie said, standing in the doorway. “’Cause Toni’s dead.”

  Sergeant Hingley appeared behind Garvie, flustered. “Sorry, sir,” she said. “I thought it was the lawyer and I buzzed him in, and—”

  “Love kids, do you?” Garvie said. “You left Toni dead at the furrier’s. March seventeenth, five years ago. He was fifteen. Also Polish.”

  Magee’s face was suddenly purple. His voice was a growl. “What the—”

  “Two witnesses, but both refused to sign their statements. It never came to trial. Thing is, Mart, they’re talking now.”

  Magee was on his feet. “Who the—”

  “What did they see scared them so much? Toni fell out of a window, you said. He also fell through it. At high speed. Do you want to hear more?”