Smokescreen

It was a stupid game. But we were going to play it anyway.

‘Voodoo Chile.' It came out sharply; a challenge.

'Hendrix.' He gave a rapid reply. Both of us had played it all our working lives.

'All Along the Watchtower!' I said. Second and last musical association.

The game often turned on the next go: the first completely random one.

'Jehovah's Witnesses.'

Harry smirked. Rubbed a forefinger and thumb together, drained the last of his Guinness with port depth-charge.

'Amish!' I shouted.

Harry turned white. I busked a rendition of a long defunct game-show’s time-out tune, counted down from 5 to zero in my head. Harry turned sulkily and went to the bar. It was a short game, for us. You only got a five count. If you came up with nothing, you bought the drinks. The game was played by bored people all over the country; in canteens, clubs and bars.We were in a blokey, smoky bar. Not licensed premises, of course. A private bar. A downstairs, backstreet Soho bar. No King's Head, Blacksmith's Arms, Farter's Arse hanging from a yardarm outside. So you could smoke. And everyone did. No dope, though. Carlton Woodbine wouldn't have that; it was his bar after all. We called the place No 6, because it was. Number six I mean. Carlton was black. No-one was brave enough to ask if it was his real name. Most of us went by a nom-de-fume. Now that smoking had been driven underground.

Harry came back with two highball glasses sporting parasols and parrot feathers.

‘What’s that you cunt?’

‘Blue Lightning.’

‘What’s in it?’

‘I don’t know, just drink it, Ray.’

I took a sip. Then a draw on a Marlboro. Harry was smoking Luckies.

‘I’ve heard rumours of Embassy available at Vauxhall, Ray.’

‘Get off, how? The last factory closed in January.’

‘There was a raid on a Bond Warehouse. Someone had forgotten about 2 million cigarettes.They’ve been there since… well, since prohibition started.’

‘Which gang? Plato’s?’

‘Dunno. Who cares?’

‘Must have been a tip-off!’ I laughed.

I hadn’t had an English cigarette in two years. No-one had. Vauxhall would be busy.

‘What’s the craic? ‘

‘We interested?’

‘Course we are; the Met’s finest aren’t we? I think we need to make sure these cigarettes don’t fall into the wrong hands.’

‘Midnight. At the Bridge. That’s all I know.’

‘Drink up, Harry. We’ll call by the office, make sure no-one else has got wind of it.’

‘Customs and Excise, you mean?’

‘Them too.’ We waved at Carlton Woodbine, who didn’t wave back.

 

11.30. We were parked in sight of Vauxhall Bridge. No mean feat. Of course the ₤500 congestion charge meant there was plenty of room on the road-side. It was just that there wasn’t often a gap between the mounds of uncollected refuse. A rat stopped half-way across the bonnet, looked in at Harry and I.

‘Kindred spirits,’ I said.

‘We could be on other spirits instead of this wild-goose chase, Ray.’

‘God, I need a fag.’

‘Well, you should be able to pick up a few soon.’

‘You know what I mean.’

‘Ray, how many times? This is our place of work. What if Joe Public sees us lighting up?’ He passed me his second-to-last Lucky.

‘Joe Public won’t be out. Curfew breakers are criminals. We are the Law.’

We both cracked up laughing, coughing the first draw-ful of smoke out.

An olive green pantechnicon pulled to a halt on the Westminster end. Harry pulled out a pair of binos.

‘Driver and mate. No hardware. Tailgate’s down. Fuckin’ hell!’

‘What?’

‘Like roaches. Bout a hundred, where did they come from? Did you
see them?’

‘Any faces?’

‘Can’t tell from here, these binos aren’t much cop.’

‘Neither are you. Let’s go and throw our weight about. Get the pump-action out of the boot.’

The first ten customers had taken their snout and melted away, by the time we reached the giant lorry. The driver and mate were in combat dress. Not a gang then. A bit of business on the side for the Army. You couldn’t blame them, according to the Internet they hadn’t been paid in six months. That kind of story wasn’t on the BBC. And you couldn’t get a satellite signal, not since Menwith Hill had switched the jumbo jammer on. ITV, of course, didn’t show any news at all. One good thing about being a copper, at least we could get access to the Internet. Joe Public hadn’t had broadband access since the pictures of the Foreign Secretary with a transsexual prostitute in India had appeared. They said the pictures were faked, naturally. But they weren’t. You could check that out with off-the-shelf software. Or you could then.

The driver nodded at us:

‘Bill?’

‘Yeah.’ We chorused.

‘Is it how much or how many?’

‘We’ll take cigs.’

‘How many?’

‘How many do you have?

‘200,000 or so.’

‘We’ll take half.’

‘And where will you put that many?’

‘We won’t, you’ll get a police escort out of the capital via our nick.’

The soldier grunted. His mate said:

‘Can we sell the rest first? You’ll hang around? Shouldn’t take more than an hour.’

‘Give us twenty on account.’ I said.

‘Yeah, on account I haven’t had an Embassy in 2 years.’ Harry sniggered.

‘Here, kill yourselves.’ The soldier said and tossed us a 200 carton.

The queue was down to two. A tallish guy came running from the Westminster side, long coat flapping behind him. Cashmere. I nudged Harry. Nodded at the latecomer. Harry looked, smiled. It was Christmas. It was the Home Secretary. We waited; his turn came. He took 2000, ten cartons. He took in our faces and the warrant cards held up beside them. Exhaling he said:

‘It’s not how it looks.’

‘But I think it is.’ I said.

‘Look, you obviously know who I am… I can-‘

’You can’t.’ Harry cut him off. ‘Mr Home Secretary, I am arresting you..’

‘Do you really need to hear that? You must have signed it off.’ My turn to interrupt.

‘Do you read everything you sign, officer?’ He seemed unfazed.

‘It’s Detective Inspector, sir. And yes I do, always.’

He gave the brilliant, vote-winning smile that had gained a Scot a Home Counties seat:

‘Of course, well OK, we’ll assume I know my rights, such as they are.’

I turned to Harry; told him to get the soldiers’ details from their ID cards and get rid of them, but not before getting us some more evidence to smoke later.

‘Worth risking everything for a cigarette, is it, sir?’

I wanted to needle him, get past the invulnerability of the politician.

‘You know how it is… I bet you’ve been dying for a fag yourself, hmm?’

The cultured Morningside tones and the raised eyebrow did it. I smashed him in the gut with my fist. Harry looked away.

‘Let’s get him in the car, Harry. See how he feels down at the station, I think he’s got stomach trouble.’
‘I didn’t know the PM smoked, did you?’ Harry wanted to know.

‘I don’t even know if my wife does, and she’s about as likely to turn up in Number Six as the Prime Minister.’

‘Speaking of which, you going home tonight?’

‘No, won’t make it before lights out. I’m going to doss here, one of the cells.’

‘You don’t mind if I take the works vehicle? I’ll blues and twos the last few miles. I’ll get most of the way… before.’

‘Keep the shotgun in the front with you. Be careful out there.’

We sniggered: before satellite went we used to laugh at the repeats of old cop shows, especially the Yank ones. Rumour had it Sat TV would have gone in 2010 if it hadn’t been for the Olympics. In the end it made no difference: the Yanks getting their arse kicked in Iran was the spectator sport of choice in 2012. And London and the UK was flat broke as a consequence. I waved Harry off. Went back to interview room 3, switched the tape to play. Something bothered me about the interview. I listened to it 3 or 4 times. No, it wouldn’t come. I put the tape in my pocket.

Out front Jerry Patel was still ignoring his book, the one he had been so interested in, before.

‘Hey, Jerry. Quiet night, eh?’

‘It was… That was-‘

‘Yes, it was. You’ll never guess. Some army blokes were flogging fags over at Vauxhall Bridge. Chummy came running up and joined the queue for ciggies. We just pulled him in for the fun of it. I whacked him one, you know.’

‘I can think of a few of them I’d want to lump.’ He allowed.

‘Yeah well… Listen Jerry, Mum’s the word, right?’

He looked doubtful.

‘I’ll put a word in with Elvis – about CID, how about that?’

He gave a crisp nod and grunted ‘OK.’

Job done. I went off to cell number 3 for a kip. It was my lucky number: so I slept.