London Falling

by Paul Cornell

  He decided he would wait until he saw who . . . but who might show up that he trusted? The light in the corridor increased slightly, meaning a door had been opened. This was it. A tall figure came and opened the observation slit to look into his cell. Costain felt a jolt of surprise, even of fear. It was Lofthouse, the detective superintendent in charge of Goodfellow. She had the same questioning look on her face as she had displayed when he’d first met her. He had thought it weird at the time. Even being looked closely at by a super was weird for a UC in his position. But this now! This was so far from standard operating procedures.

  Lofthouse made eye contact with him, then looked down again towards the food slot. Since she was Quill’s superior . . . God, maybe this was all about Quill! Maybe there was nobody else here she could trust. And Costain had to trust someone if he was going to save himself. He reached behind his back for the tape recorder.

  At 2.01 a.m., Quill lowered his head to his desk in relief after Harry told him that Lofthouse had taken possession of the Nagra.

  He went off for a few hours of proper sleep in the accommodation block, and returned to Ops, blinking in the light of morning, to find that Harry had the intelligence analyst’s report ready for him. He read the report, balled it up, threw it across the room, then had to go and fetch it and smooth it out again. He put in a call to Lofthouse, but was told she wasn’t in yet. Then he turned back to Harry, and lowered his voice.

  ‘Fuck,’ he said. ‘Someone inside here. No wonder the first UC got freaked out.’

  ‘Even by my delightful visage? But, no, he didn’t know me from Adam.’

  ‘We need to get the CCTV record from the custody suite.’

  ‘Already done. What would you do without me? But, yeah, this sort of thing is why Lofthouse has been so hands-on. And it’s worked, because Toshack didn’t know about the first UC. Which means, by the way, that Costain’s clean – in terms of working for Toshack, anyway.’

  ‘I doubt they’ll hold a parade in his honour, after he’s provided a tape on which he actually tells Toshack he’s a copper. Crown Prosecution Service might not even go for a trial now.’

  ‘He only told him at the very last moment, and it’s all there on the tape, start to finish, alongside a good dollop of testimony in which he mentions issues pertaining to a prosecution.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah.’

  Harry let Quill calm down for a moment, as he always did. ‘First and second UCs have been vanished from custody into safe houses, told to stay handy for debriefing. Again, Lofthouse sorted that.’

  Quill frowned. ‘I’d have kept first UC in custody.’

  ‘Take it up with her.’

  ‘How’s Toshack by now?’

  ‘Sober, says the FME.’

  ‘Right, let’s be having him.’ As Harry departed to organize that, Quill went over to a cupboard, where he found and then opened a box of ancient cassette tapes wrapped in cellophane. ‘We,’ he addressed the room, a room he no longer trusted and was now playing a bloody role to, ‘are the last people in the world still using cassettes. They stick, they jam and, whenever they do, we have to bloody seal them up like they’re radioactive and start the interview all over again.’

  ‘Your point being, Jimmy?’ said Salter, a questioning look on his face. Quill wondered at the extent to which the tension level in this room had increased now that a handful of people in Gipsy Hill knew they had a bad apple in their midst.

  ‘I like the smell of this stationery cupboard.’ He slammed open the doors on his way out, before bellowing at them from the safety of the corridor. ‘I feel my new career may be in stationery.’

  Quill took along a uniform on shift, PC Watterson, who looked about twelve, and had him sit in with him in the interview room, where two other uniforms led Toshack in, his brief beside him, and then left them to it. The brief had a look in his eye that Quill hadn’t seen before in any case associated with Toshack. He looked as if he was on the losing side and didn’t like it. It was a promising expression, he reckoned, but it didn’t add up to much against what was on the other side of the scales. Quill adopted a poker face as he proceeded through the usual lengthy introductions and cautions.

  Costain had been placed in a West Indian gang called the Toil just as it and Toshack’s gang had started competing for street corners where they could sell smack. He’d spent months in the shebeens of Peckham, those illegal drinking dens where Pa Toil’s guys hung out, socializing, becoming part of the furniture, inviting guys back to his place on a regular basis, helping out on the particular night when one of the shebeens got raided by the police and was shut down. As Quill had predicted, Toshack had eventually made an approach to Pa, and had subsequently taken over the much smaller Toil in that miraculous way of his. Those of Pa’s soldiers who liked the prospect – Costain included – had thus become part of the Toshack gang. In the two years following that, Costain had risen to a position where Toshack trusted him enough to let him bring Sefton into the gang.

  After today’s raid, Costain was meant to have been left with his cover intact, letting him maintain a relationship with Toshack. They could subsequently meet ‘coincidentally’ in the back of a prison van, during some transfer between facilities. Costain would tell Toshack who he thought the informer who had brought down the gang had been, naming Sefton as the culprit (because Toshack might have a genuine reason for trusting another gang member), and then apologize for his own bad judgement in bringing Sefton into the gang, and thus get loads of extra juice in return. Quill had played that one often in order to get access to the sort of intelligence that remained locked in prisoners’ heads after their gangs had exploded. It had always worked. His UCs still had useful ‘correspondences’ going on with loads of those behind bars, the letters all written and sent from the right postcodes by the staff of SCD 10, who received the replies too.

  But Costain had now put an end to the possibility of any of that, having blown his own cover with what was, at the very least, a stupid piece of grandstanding. Having put this unreliable UC into that situation could look pretty bad on Quill’s CV – maybe bad enough to create real trouble for him if there were elements inside the operation who might try to get him chucked out before they themselves got fingered.

  But that expression on the brief’s face had suggested that the gang leader hadn’t just been happily telling him about the undercover cop who’d given them some leverage. Toshack looked like a man who’d made his mind up. Very sober now, in fact.

  Quill didn’t bother greeting Toshack. His old dad had been friends with some of the gangsters he’d nicked, but Quill didn’t feel the modern world gave him space for such romantic illusions. He used his house key to unwrap the cellophane slowly and carefully from the fresh cassettes, in clear view of the prisoner. He placed both tapes in the double-deck recorder and pressed the Record button. ‘This interview is being recorded,’ he said into the machine. ‘I am Detective Inspector James Quill, and also present is Constable Joseph Watterson. Will the suspect and his solicitor please identify themselves?’

  ‘Robert Toshack.’ He sounded very precise this morning.

  ‘Philip Jones, from Austell Probert Mackinley,’ said the brief.

  ‘This interview takes place at eleven-oh-eight hours on 1 January in Interview Room 2 of Gipsy Hill police station. Mr Toshack will be given a notice as to the circumstances in which these tapes are used, and the master tape will be sealed in his presence at the end of the interview. Mr Toshack, your right to free and independent legal advice is ongoing. Although your solicitor is with you, you may ask for the tape to be stopped and have a private consultation with him at any time. Mr Toshack, I warn you that you do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention, when questioned, something which you later rely on in court, and that anything you do say may be given in evidence.’ He could see the brief hoping he’d slip up. Juries only ever pursued that route if they really liked the bloke in the dock, and defendants’ briefs only we
nt for it out of desperation. Quill knew one old lag who’d been successfully cautioned with ‘Get in the fucking van, you’re nicked,’ but that one had heard the full standard caution on forty-three previous occasions, and was thus claimed to have got the idea by now. And Toshack had enjoyed a charmed life with juries. ‘You are now under caution. Allow me to explain that further—’

  Toshack spoke up. ‘I understand the caution. I’ve heard enough of them, so let’s get this over with.’

  ‘Look at you, the good man in the hands of the barbarians.’ Quill said it deliberately, to see how much lip the brief was willing to take. And there was his second good sign: not a glimmer of a reaction. ‘Mr Toshack, the two tapes that are running will record everything we say here today, and that recording can also be used as evidence. If you’re charged with any offences, a copy of the interview tape will be provided to your chosen legal adviser. We’re about to ask you your whereabouts at the time of a series of major crimes, including but not limited to the armed raid on the Barclays Bank security van on the Fulham Road, during which the guard, Mr Carl Lassiter, was murdered; about leases actually in your name on a number of houses of ill repute; about the operation of a number of car-theft rings—’

  ‘I did it all,’ said Toshack.

  Quill forced himself not to swear in sheer astonishment. ‘Would you . . . repeat that, please, Mr Toshack?’

  The brief spoke before Toshack could reply, clearly not having been prewarned about this. ‘My client is suffering from—’

  ‘I’m not one of these modern fuckwits who suffer from things. I said I did it all. Everything you’re charging me with. Everything you’re thinking of charging me with—’

  ‘If I may have a moment with my client—’

  ‘Get him out of here!’ yelled Toshack.

  ‘Are you declining legal representation, Mr Toshack?’ Because, if he was, that was just the old bastard being awkward. Then Quill would have to summon an inspector unconnected to the case in here, who would then have to make a written record of the whole procedure. Quill knew a DS who’d gone ahead without remembering that, and ended up with an inadmissible interview.

  ‘He can stay if he keeps his gob shut!’

  So it hadn’t been a ploy. Quill suppressed a grin, thinking it was a week late for Christmas. He carefully finished his list of charges, watching Toshack’s face as he read them out.

  Toshack sat back in the chair heavily, listening carefully, nodding along. ‘You’re not going to believe this,’ he said, when Quill had finished, ‘but this is my only way out now. I think I’ve made a big mistake.’ Quill kept his expression neutral. ‘I think . . . someone’ll come for me, and I don’t know how long that might take. The first thing I have to say is . . .’ He seemed to have to make an effort in saying it. ‘I’m sorry.’

  Quill blinked. ‘You’re sorry?’

  ‘I’d . . . like you to get the chaplain in here, actually, Quill. I’m going to clear my conscience, tell you everything I’ve done. I am begging forgiveness.’

  ‘We’ll get the clergy involved further down the line. If you want forgiveness from me, you’ll need to name names. Every name.’

  Toshack took a deep breath, then he nodded. ‘All right,’ he said, ‘but not here and now. I’m going to need certain things doing . . .’

  Quill was thinking how Toshack must reckon he was born yesterday if he thought he was going to put him in a van, to be rescued by his freelancers. Quill later remembered that thought very clearly; it was frozen inside his head. He would recall it every time he remembered what happened next.

  Toshack suddenly stopped talking, his lips tightly pursed. Then he jerked his hands up in the air, waved them around violently as if trying to push something away from him. There was a look in his eye which it took Quill a second to register: a look of recognition, as if someone he knew had just walked into the room. He leaped up out of his seat and staggered around. His face was going purple, and it looked as he was having some kind of seizure.

  Of all the bloody times!

  ‘Get the doctor!’ Quill shouted to Watterson, who was already running for the door. Then he remembered the tape. It was otherwise just him and the brief in here now, but at least the security camera would be getting this. ‘Mr Toshack seems to be suffering from some sort of medical . . . event!’

  Which was when Toshack became suddenly hard to look at.

  Quill wondered if he himself was suffering his first migraine. He felt he was suddenly viewing Toshack from the far end of a long lens; as if, impossibly, Quill was far below and the other man was flying. But, when he blinked and told his brain to get a grip, there the man was again, up against the wall . . . yeah, of course, that was the wall. He was staring at Quill, not playing some trick with him, but terrified – terrified because that look in his eyes was terrified. It was more than terror at what was happening to him, because his eyes were moving so swiftly, as if he was dreaming, as if there was some new horror in every direction he looked. He looked to be trying to scream without even being able to open his mouth. His face had gone purple, and he looked completely full of blood. Quill imagined cartoon steam coming off him and, just for a moment, he swore he actually saw it. The brief was frantically questioning Toshack, asking if he was fit to continue.

  Quill tried to reach towards the stricken man, to usher him back down into his seat, to tell him medical help was on the way, because he wouldn’t be getting out of it that easily—

  The blood exploded into Quill’s face.

  He fell with the force of it, hit the desk and then fell. Great gouts of blood, far too much, flew around him, covering the furniture, the tape recorder, the room, as if a bucket of it had been thrown over him. Quill managed to heave himself upright, and found blood still showering like rain. He was covered in it. So was the brief, who was yelling hysterically. Toshack, or what was left of Toshack – no, whole Toshack, for there he was, all of him – was just a mass of blood which had come from that mouth, that had burst from him, from his lolling dead head.

  The doctor came running in, and there were cries and shouts along the corridors outside. Quill tried to get up, but he slipped in the blood. The doctor was stumbling towards him, as if something could still be done, getting the blood on the soles of her shoes. The brief was now just staring. Quill started to shout that maybe . . . maybe this was a crime scene. Maybe poison! Gipsy Hill needed to be shut down. Now! Now! Lofthouse rushed in, along with a lot of uniforms. She started yelling at him, all the questions Quill couldn’t answer. Quill stood away, by the wall, his hands held away from his body, his suit covered in blood, feeling that he would at any moment wake up.

  FOUR

  Lisa Ross sat in the dark in her tiny anonymous office at the trading estate in Norwood, listening to the Nagra tape for the third time. She didn’t want to think about what they’d just called to tell her, about what had just happened. It was too big to comprehend. She had ready in front of her, on the ancient laptop the Met let her have the use of, her report forms where she’d been annotating the background and any possible follow-ups to everything Toshack had said. She invariably found new elements to add on every listen. She’d always felt privileged that DI Quill wanted her to listen to these tapes before he did, that he’d recognized her specialist knowledge in that way. She liked to work straight from the tape, and only look afterwards at the transcripts prepared by SCD 10’s blind audio typist, Stacey, who was presumably up as late as she was.

  But that would be in preparation for a trial. And now there wasn’t going to be a trial. Not of Toshack, at least. Someone might have got to him, they were saying, but it wasn’t clear how, since he’d been kept well isolated and hadn’t eaten anything since his arrest.

  She wanted to hit something. She wanted to rip the throat from something. But the only thing she really wanted to do that to was Toshack himself.

  The universe had made her the butt of an enormous joke, and she could hear it laughing.

  They
’d said he’d started to confess. Maybe that was something, at least. For the longest time now, as intelligence on the Toshack organization had always failed, as every avenue of inquiry had shut down, as jury after jury had failed to convict, she’d felt that nothing she had been trying to do would ever work.

  Now she knew it certainly never would.

  But Toshack was dead. Wasn’t that revenge on him of a kind? So why didn’t she feel anything? God, she hoped she eventually would, or what was left to her?

  Detective Superintendent Lofthouse herself, to Ross’ astonishment, had brought over the tape and transcripts in the early hours. ‘I’m up anyway,’ she’d said, ‘so I thought let’s cut out one more courier.’ Ross had felt weird, receiving them from this smart woman at the door of her office unit, with herself dressed in sweatshirt and leggings. Ross had been told her appearance could put the fear of God into people at the best of times. Her right eye was blue, but her left one was grey, and her nose was askew, like a boxer’s. For a boxer’s reason, too. But Lofthouse, who amazingly had seemed to know who she was, had turned out to be all right. She’d said she hoped someday Ross could come into the Ops Room, get to meet the team. Like other intelligence analysts did, was what she hadn’t added.

  Ross had yelled out loud when she listened to the tape for the first time, and heard Toshack talk about Alf – insulting his own brother, belittling him. She didn’t know the name of the first UC, other than that Toshack referred to him as ‘Blakey’, but she’d grown to recognize his voice and had, for years now, ground her teeth at his gleeful laughter, and how he seemed to appreciate every shitty little thing Toshack said.

  Then, towards the end of the tape, when the sod seemed to get some idea of urgency and had started to get some good stuff, but then ended up telling Toshack he was a UC . . . she’d leaped out of her chair. She’d taken the knife she always kept in her pocket, and she’d slammed it into her desk, and then had hated the sight of it there, the idea that now there’d always be a mark.