A Fistful of Knuckles

by Tom Graham

  Unmoved and unconcerned, Gene Hunt lounged against a wall, his arms folded, his manner casual: ‘So Doc, what’s the story with Rocky Marciano? Anything for us to go on?’

  ‘Denzil Obi’s been dead about two or three days,’ said the coroner. ‘He suffered a prolonged and powerful attack, almost exclusively to the face and head. Massive fractures to the parietal and zygomatic regions.’

  ‘That bit and that bit,’ translated Gene for Sam’s benefit, pointing to the side of his head and then his cheek.

  ‘Nice to see you’re picking up the lingo, Inspector,’ said the coroner, impressed.

  ‘I’m not just looks and charm,’ growled Gene. ‘So what was the weapon used? Iron bar was it? Baseball bat?’

  ‘Interestingly, no. The nature of the skull fractures are inconclusive, but the contusions to the face and head bear very clear imprints of a human fist. Punch marks, gentlemen.’

  ‘Well that makes sense,’ put in Sam. ‘Denzil Obi was a boxer. Are you sure these weren’t old bruises?’

  The coroner smiled condescendingly and said: ‘I flatter myself, young man, that I can tell an old contusion from a cause of death. Denzil Obi was punched – repeatedly, and with impressive force,’ he fought to suppress another deep, whelky belch, ‘until he died from cerebral haemorrhaging.’

  ‘But … whoever did this must have hands the size of anvils!’ Sam said.

  Again, the coroner shook his head: ‘Quite the opposite. A broad fist wouldn’t inflict quite this degree of concentrated damage; the force of the blows would be more widely dissipated. The man who killed Obi had small hands – small, with strongly condensed bone structure, rock solid, packed tight. I measured the bruises; the man who inflicted them has fists slightly less than three inches across the knuckles – about the same length as your index finger, Inspector Tyler. Every punch would have been like an intensely focused hammer blow.’

  ‘One bloke, you reckon?’ asked Gene. ‘Just one bloke to overpower Obi and beat him to death?’

  ‘It’s perfectly feasible,’ said the coroner. ‘I could find no evidence that the victim was restrained in any way during the attack, and all the injuries he sustained are consistent with an attack from a single assailant. One man attacked him. One man killed him.’

  Gene pulled a sceptical, pouting expression, but the coroner smiled and went on. ‘A single blow, powerful enough and delivered in the right place, could leave even a professional boxer reeling. If the victim was dazed and semi-conscious, his assailant could rain blows on him unresisted. In this case, though, Obi didn’t go quietly. He fought back – at least for a while. His hands were freshly cut and bruised. The struggle may have lasted some minutes.’ He grunted up a noisy bubble of stinking air. ‘Like the struggle between me and these whelks. Excuse me, gentlemen – if I don’t get some liver salts down me I’m going to be the next one on the slab.’

  ‘But what about the bullet?’ asked Sam as the coroner pushed past him.

  ‘Shoved down his throat after he died,’ the coroner called back as he strode away down the corridor. ‘A tantalizing mystery for you sleuths to puzzle over.’

  And then, with one last resounding belch, he was gone, leaving Sam and Gene alone.

  ‘Denzil was a boxer,’ said Sam. ‘Whoever killed him was a boxer too – somebody who knows what they’re doing with their fists.’

  ‘Most likely,’ said Gene. ‘A boxer with a grudge – and very small hands.’

  Without warning, Gene reached out and roughly grabbed Sam’s hand.

  ‘Guv, what the hell are you doing?!’

  ‘The length of your index finger, he said,’ growled Gene, peering at Sam’s finger. ‘It’s gonna be like Cinderella and the glass slipper; whoever owns the fist that matches your pink little manicured digit, he’s our man.’

  ‘I’m not playing Prince Charming for you, Guv! You’re not using my finger as a measuring stick for murderers!’

  ‘I thought you’d always wanted to give me the finger, Sammy-boy.’

  ‘Give over!’

  Sam wrenched himself free from Gene’s powerful grasp.

  ‘Let’s at least try and behave like professional coppers, Guv,’ he said. ‘Denzil knew his killer. That would explain why he let him into the flat. They quarrelled – fought – after a few minutes, Denzil was overpowered, and the killer pummelled him to death. But why stick a bullet down his throat afterwards?’

  Gene shrugged: ‘Symbolic. I dunno. We’ll ask the killer when we nick him.’

  ‘And how are we going to do that, guv? Where are we going to start?’

  ‘Somewhere conducive to contemplation, where the mighty Gene Hunt noggin can work its magic.’

  ‘And where’s that, guv?’ asked Sam.

  Gene looked at him flatly and said: ‘Where’d you think, dumb-dumb? And you’ll be the one getting them in.’

  The Railway Arms was quiet at this time of day. The atmosphere seemed poised, ready for the crush of drinkers, the clamour of manly voices, the braying of blokey laughter that would fill the place come evening time. The familiar pumps gleamed along the bar, promising Watney’s, Flowers and Courage on draught. The ashtrays sat clean and expectant, like baby birds awaiting feeding. The floor was not yet sticky underfoot with spilt beer. And Nelson, resplendent in his flowing dreadlocks and a gaudy shirt depicting the sun setting over a Caribbean island, seemed nicely mellowed, perhaps conserving his energies for the bustle and bullshit of the evening crowd.

  ‘Very thirtsy coppers today,’ he observed, glancing at his watch as Gene strode in through the door, Sam in his wake. ‘What’s the reason for dis early visit? Are we celebrating victories or drownin’ our woes?’

  ‘One of your lot just got whacked,’ announced Gene, leaning against the bar and sparking up a fag. ‘We need a moment to cogitate on the clues. Two pints of best, and make it snappy.’

  ‘What you mean, one o’ my lot?’ asked Nelson as he pulled the pints.

  ‘A black,’ said Gene, speaking around the cigarette clamped between his lips. Sam literally cringed. Gene glanced at him, ‘All right then, a ‘mixed race black’. ‘Appy now, Tyler? Whatever you call him, he was mashed to smithereens like a blood pudding under a steamroller.’

  ‘Is dat so?’ said Nelson, raising his eyebrows but playing it very cool. ‘Terrible. It’s a terrible world we’re livin’ in.’

  ‘It is,’ put in Sam. ‘There’s terrible things that get done. And said. Nelson, I apologise on behalf of my DCI. He isn’t really a pig-ignorant National Front scumbag racist, he just sounds like one.’

  ‘Who you calling an NF scumbag?’ retorted Gene. ‘I’m colour blind, me. I know all the words to the Melting Pot Song. Gonna get a white bloke, stick him in a black bloke …’

  ‘That really is enough, Gene!’ Sam silenced him, and he meant it.

  But Nelson was laughing: ‘Blue Mink! Now I tink I got that stashed away some place.’

  ‘You see?’ growled Gene, gulping down a mouthful of beer and giving himself a froth moustache. ‘Nelson knows what’s racialist and what ain’t. The trouble with you, Tyler – well, apart from all the other troubles with you – is that you think screaming like a nancy with a stinging dick at what normal blokes say makes you some sort of saint. Well it don’t. It just makes you a mouthy get with no sense of what’s what.’

  ‘It’s a little thing called political correctness, Guv. It’s all to do with treating diversity with respect.’

  ‘“Diversity with respect”!’ sneered Gene, downing another frothy draught. ‘Kid gloves is for butlers and snooker refs, Tyler. You can’t wear ‘em in the street. Or on the beat. Now knock it off and let the mighty Genie noggin’ get to work. I got a killer to catch.’

  Gene carried his pint and smouldering fag over to corner table and ensconced himself.

  Sam shook his head and turned to Nelson: ‘I’m sorry you have to hear talk like that.’

  ‘Oh, forget it, friend!’ Nelson beamed at him, his showy Jamaica
n accent vanishing and being replaced with the broad tones of Burnley. ‘Water off a duck’s back. Your boss, he don’t mean no harm. He’s just repeating what he’s learnt.’

  ‘It’s not right, the way he talks. Where I come from, Nelson, it’s all very different.’

  ‘Yup,’ said Nelson. ‘And where I come from too.’

  CHAPTER TWO: STELLA’S GYM

  ‘Have you been drinking with the guv again?’ asked Annie, looking up at Sam from her desk at CID. ‘Sam, it’s barely lunchtime!’

  ‘I only had the one, to keep him company,’ said Sam. ‘Why, can you smell beer on me?’

  ‘That, and about a million fags.’

  They glanced across at Gene who was back in his office, chewing on a biro while casting his eyes over the racing pages. He’d found no inspiration in the pub; perhaps he hoped he’d find it among the runners and riders.

  ‘You’re looking tired, Annie,’ said Sam, drawing up a chair beside her. ‘Is everything alright?’

  ‘Working here? It’s one big summer holiday.’ She smiled, but then her smile faltered. ‘Actually, I’ve been a bit down.’

  ‘Why? It wasn’t Ray again with that awful plastic thing?’

  ‘No, Sam, it wasn’t Ray and that awful plastic thing.’

  ‘I’ve warned him, Annie, I’ll have him disciplined if he keeps bringing that in.’

  ‘It’s nothing like that,’ said Annie. ‘It’s my own fault. I’ve been letting a case get to me, taking it personally.’

  She opened a file on her desk and revealed a photograph of a slim, frail-looking girl staring blankly at the camera. Her eyes were almost completely closed by fat, shiny bruises; her top lip was swollen. Beneath this battered mask Annie had carefully written the victim’s name: Tracy Porter.

  ‘A&E called me in a couple of days ago to speak to her,’ Annie said. ‘Her boyfriend’s the one who did it – and it’s not the first time, neither – but she’s too frightened to go on record. I’ve been trying to persuade her, but she’s saying she walked into a door.’

  Sam nodded. It was an old story. How many more beatings would young Tracy Porter endure before she ended up on the same mortuary slab as Denzil Obi? How many Denzils and Tracys would come and go through just this CID department alone – battered, bullied, and beyond help?

  Sam closed the file. He had seen enough smashed and brutalised faces for one day.

  ‘I know it’s not easy, Annie, but you’ve got to keep a professional distance with stuff like this.’

  ‘Normally I do. I don’t know what it is about this girl that’s gotten to me. I think it’s the frustration, the way she’s protecting that bastard who did it to her. I can’t get through to her, Sam. Just name him, I say. I’ll help you – but you’ve got help me first. But it’s no good. Sometimes I want to shake her, it makes me so mad.’

  ‘Looks like she’s been shaken enough already,’ said Sam.

  ‘Exactly. So then I feel guilty that I want to get rough with her an’ all. She’s hardly the brightest star in the sky, but she still doesn’t deserve what she’s getting.’

  ‘It can sound heartless to say it, Annie, but once you’ve done all you can you really do have to walk away. That’s the job. You have your life, she has hers.’

  ‘If you can call what she’s got ‘a life’, trailing around with Terry Barnard’s fairground, living in a crappy caravan, getting smacked about by that thug of a boyfriend. She doesn’t know how to look after herself, or else she’s just given up. I had to literally twist her arm to make a check-up appointment with the hospital, just to make sure everything’s healing up okay. I think the only reason she agreed to go is because I promised to meet here there.’

  ‘You think she’ll show?’

  Annie shrugged: ‘If she does, I’m going to have one last crack at getting her to give evidence.’

  ‘Don’t get your hopes up too high, Annie. We’re just coppers. We all get frustrated. I do. Chris does. Even Ray and Gene, they take it personally sometimes. But none of us can save the world. We can do our best, and we can do our job, but we can’t do the impossible.’

  ‘Speak for yourself,’ Ray Carling said, looming suddenly over them. ‘The impossible’s my forte. I can give you the number of a few birds who’ll testify to that.’

  ‘Ray, please, would you give us some space?’ said Sam, forcing himself to keep his cool.

  ‘Not until you’ve answered a question for me, Boss,’ Ray replied.

  ‘Okay. What’s your question?’

  ‘What do you say to a bird with two black eyes?’

  Instantly, Annie stiffened and looked away. Sam wearily rubbed his forehead.

  ‘Ray, you have picked the single worst possible moment to start telling that joke. And besides, I’ve heard it. And it wasn’t funny the first time.’

  ‘Only trying to raise a smile,’ said Ray, stuffing a strip of Juicy Fruit into his mouth. ‘Perhaps I’ll bring that plastic thing back in again. That gets a few laffs.’

  ‘No you won’t bring that plastic thing back in again, Ray! I’ve bloody warned you!’

  ‘Suit yourself, you tight-arsed get,’ shrugged Ray. ‘We all need to get through as best we can. Go off our rockers, otherwise. At least Chrissy-wissy’s got a sense of humour round here. He likes that plastic thing.’

  Chris’s head popped up from behind a mountain of paperwork weighed down with an overflowing ashtray.

  ‘I love that plastic thing!’ he said eagerly. ‘Have you brought it in again?!’

  Ray sauntered over to him: ‘’Fraid not. Orders from the laffin’ gnome over there. But I got a question for you, Chris. What do you say to a bird with two black eyes?’

  Ignoring him, Sam turned back to Annie.

  ‘Sorry about that,’ he said. ‘It’s just Ray being Ray.’

  Annie smiled at him and said: ‘Thanks, Sam – you know – for not being like all the rest.’

  Across the office, Ray reached the cruel punch line and Chris brayed with laughter.

  Keeping his back to them both, Sam leant closer to Annie and dropped his voice: ‘Listen, maybe I can cheer you up by taking you out for dinner some time?’

  ‘You asking me out on a date, Boss?’

  ‘As your superior officer I suppose I could order you out on a date with me.’

  ‘How romantic. Where have you got in mind? The canteen downstairs?’

  ‘I think we can go a little more upmarket than that. You choose the restaurant. Anywhere you like, Annie. Don’t worry about the expense. Manchester is your oyster!’

  Sam stopped suddenly. Oysters. They made him think of whelks. And whelks made him think of the fat-bellied coroner belching and grunting in the morgue.

  ‘Anywhere you like, Annie, but – please – not seafood.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I’ve sort of … gone off it recently. Well? Am I tempting you?’

  Annie swivelled playfully in her chair and said: ‘I don’t know. You’ve taken me by surprise, young man.’

  ‘Not the first time you’ve said that, I’ll bet.’

  ‘I’ll have a think about it and get back to you,’ she said, making a show of moving folders and files around on her desk. ‘I’m busy. But if you’re lucky I might be able to squeeze you in somewhere.’

  ‘And not the first time you’ve said that, I’ll bet.’

  ‘You are as bad as the rest of ‘em!’ Annie cried at him, blushing.

  ‘I’m the king of the bad ‘uns round here!’ Gene suddenly intoned from the doorway of his office. ‘Tyler! Stop fiddling with DI Bristols and start acting like a copper with a job to do. Raymondo! Christopher! I’m bored of reading the paper and I don’t feel like a taking a dump just yet; catch me a killer so I can play pat-a-cake with him in the interview room ‘til it’s home time.’

  ‘Got a possible start for you, Guv,’ said Ray, waving a piece of paper. ‘I’ve been digging up what I can about this half-darkie lad what got whacked.’

 
‘Mixed race,’ Sam corrected him, knowing nobody was interested. ‘It’s so simple: it’s mixed race.’

  ‘Looks like he was a local boy,’ Ray went on. ‘In and out of trouble as a kid, got himself nicked a couple of times – thieving, spot of aggro here and there, nothing serious. Worked around and about as a bouncer, did a spot of lugging down the warehouses. Then he started picking up a living as a bare-knuckle boxer at illegal fights.’

  ‘Is there a living in that?’ asked Sam.

  ‘If you know what you’re doing, Boss, aye, ‘course there is,’ said Ray. ‘There’s a lot of money slopping around in that game. But most of them lads are trying to go legit now – like Denzil Obi. It’s safer being a pro. Life in the boxing underworld can be pretty rough.’

  ‘Inside the ring and out of it,’ said Gene, nodding to himself. ‘So – our boy Denzil was looking to go straight, make an honest living at last. But somewhere along the way he’d piddled on somebody’s chips – and aforesaid somebody caught up with him, popped round his flat and aired his grievances. Come on, Ray, get me some names – who were Obi’s acquaintances? Did he have a trainer? Sparring partners? Boxing buddies?’

  ‘I don’t know about none of that – but this was found at his flat,’ said Ray, and he passed a laminated card to Gene.

  Gene peered at it and read out loud: ‘Stella’s Gym. Denzil ‘The Black Widow’ Obi. Full membership.’

  ‘The Black Widow!’ grinned Chris. ‘That’s wicked, that!’

  ‘Stella’s Gym …’ Gene mused. ‘Don’t know it. Got an address for it, Raymond?’

  ‘It’s on the back of the card, Guv.’

  ‘Excellent. Ray, you stay here with ‘wicked’ Chris Skelton and carry on digging up everything you can about Obi. Go through the arrest files, see what dodgy underworld boxers we’ve got on the records. And find out who’s in town – boxers, brawlers, shady fight promoters, anyone Obi might have come into contact with. And as for you, Sugar Ray Tyler-’