Smokescreen Chapter 8

At 8.30 I woke up, when I hit the floor. It wasn’t far to fall, but it was a shock. Especially as I looked up to a smirking Fritz the Twat standing over me, arms full of files.

‘Rise and shine, Murray. Work to do.’

‘Guv to you. Your arsehole hasn’t healed up yet has it?’

His eyes narrowed:

‘No.’

‘Well, I still outrank you then, DS Du Toit. So fuck off out of my face.’

He strode off. 3 uniforms and a DC were humping metal desks and filing cabinets about. Evidently I’d slept through the removal of the bar’s portable furniture. The partitioning that had formed the backdrop to yesterday’s press statement had lists, photographs and a pin-marked map fastened to it. The ACC had a mobile welded to his ear, giving someone a good listening to. Why did people nod, when they were on the ‘phone?

I hauled myself off the floor. The duty plod had been awake when I’d arrived last night. He took a few Guinness with me, in the end. No sign of him this morning. I’d asked him about ‘Smokescreen.’Couldn’t remember his answer. Not right then. I needed coffee. The urn was in, on a table with tubular legs over by the bar. A jar of the chicory-heavy instant coffee that was all you could get now had the lid off and a spoon periscope-d out of it. The paper cups were still in a shrink-wrapped sleeve. No hot water yet then.

A quarter pint of the uniform’s last Guinness sat on the bar. I picked it up. Headed for the lav. Put the glass on the sink unit. I knelt before the porcelain and waited for the flood. When the convulsions were over, I kept my eyes shut as I flushed the evidence away. The Guinness mouthwash almost set me off again, but not quite.

There was a ripple of grunts, ‘guvs’ and one ‘old red-eyes is back’. The PCs were first to introduce themselves;

‘PC Grant, guv. Just left traffic.’ No nights, for her.

‘PC Abramowicz. … I’m on probation, Sir.’ Great.

‘PC Hewson, guv.’ Fuck me George Hewson, DS on the Drugs Squad, last I’d heard. I nodded at him.

There were two DC’s whose names I couldn’t be bothered to remember. Close cropped hair and ungenerous mouths. I mentally tagged them the Thompson Twins. The other DC I knew of: Johnny Wright, ‘Johnny-on-the-spot’, he’d worked with Harry in the past. My partner had never explained the nickname. That left the two DS’s

‘DS Wilton, guv.’ I looked down at him. He was 5ft 2 inches in his lifts. Of course, his nickname was ‘Off-Cut.’

‘DS Du Toit, guv. Welcome aboard.’

‘Man the fucking lifeboats.’ I said to no-one in particular.

‘Murray, a word.’ Elvis was tugging at my Jacket. I shrugged him off: almost overbalanced. We stepped off to one side.

‘You report to me. All the files are here, everything. All in order. I want this wrapped up by the weekend. You understand?’

‘Understand what, sir? The hurry?’

‘Someone as unsteady on their feet as you should avoid skating on thin ice.’

He headed out of the building, striding long, like someone who never had to look down for pitfalls - or thin ice.

One of the three metal desks had my nameplate from the TV broadcast on it. And the pile of files Fritz the Twat had been carrying. I shouted:

'Oy! Who’s going to brief me on the investigation then?’

Off-Cut started to step forward, but Du Toit put an arm out and Wilton’s chest rebounded off it.

‘I’ll do it, Guv. Senior member of the team and all that.’

We sat on opposite sides of the desk and the pile of files. All police work makes paper: that’s why there are so few charges or even arrests. Important investigations just make more of it. I had no intention of reading every sheet.

‘Abramowicz! Two coffees, please, black’ It came out as a croak.

‘I’ll have white.’ No please from Fritz the Twat, naturally.

‘Give. What have you got?’

‘PM found on the ground outside, out front of here. No blood. No obvious wound.’

‘CCTV?’ I asked.

Fritz laughed; ‘Yeah, right up until lights out. Nothing conclusive.’

‘But something?’

‘If you call an outline shape something; bending over the body. There must have been an outage earlier too, there’s a 20 minute blank. No body: body there. Alakazam!’

‘Any corroboration on the power cut?’

‘Barman says yes.’

‘What about the extent, all of the Palace of Westminster, just this building? What?’

‘It’ll be in the file.’ He didn’t know.

‘You been on this from the beginning?’

‘No…’ he looked over my shoulder, at Churchill or Palmerston for all I knew.

‘Just since yesterday morning.’

‘Anybody from the initial discovery?’

‘No.’

‘Send the Thompson Twins to find out about the power.’

‘Eh?’

‘Those two, the DCs.’

I pointed at them. They still looked joined at the hip. Fritz went over to give them their orders. My coffee arrived. Good. Looked like I had to do some reading after all.

Things appeared on my desk from time to time. A telephone, one of the laptops from the hastily knocked-up network, more coffee. Most of the files ended up on the floor. By 11.15, I had 3 documents in front of me: An initialled statement by one AB of Westminster Security, the privatised force that protected the Palace from terrorists. Mostly ex-Bill, Army and in a few cases Special Forces: they had adopted a policy of anonymity, after an Internet beheading in 2013. The Guardian, before it folded, had dubbed them the Praetorian Guard.

There was a SOCO’s report, unsigned, with a note clipped to the front ‘Body moved?’ Lastly, the autopsy report. The doctor said TOD was uncertain, within 5 hours of the body’s discovery. I didn’t understand the science.

I spotted Abramawicz, over by the door, examining something from his ear;

‘Oy! Abramawicz, got something for you to do.’

To his credit, he looked pleased. I handed him the documents.

‘See if you can’t find a photocopier somewhere. 2 copies of all of it. Give it to me personally.’

I pictured him wandering about aimlessly for a quarter of an hour before plucking up the courage to ask someone who might be able to help him.

Fritz appeared in front of the desk.

‘What time we knocking off tonight, Guv?’

‘How do I know?’

‘I’m meeting some guys… we’re over Southall, tonight. Going for an Indian.’

‘Do what you like.’

They wouldn’t be debating the merits of Korma over Vindaloo: sometimes I just got too tired to care. Even about the mayhem Fritz and his thug pals would cause in the South Asian Enclave.

Amazingly, Abramawicz turned up with the documents: the copies in a new file. I thanked him. He needed to find another line of work. Such efficiency wouldn’t go unpunished long. I headed to the lavs to pick up my spare clothes. It was time to go and meet Harry at the Number Six. I fumbled the coathangers, my best Jacket fell in a puddle of piss by the pedestal. As I picked it up a bulging creamy envelope fell out.

I recognised the embossed crest from quite a few previous communications. A post-it note’s glue had dried and the note itself fell out as I unfolded the letter:

‘From the Office of the Nigerian State Required Skills Immigration Scheme…

Dear Mr Murray,

We are pleased at your interest in the NSRSIS. However, we regret to inform you that your particular field’s quota is full. We encourage you to reapply, but can at present give you no indication as to when your application might be accepted.

In the meantime, there are two other possibilities open to you.

Please find enclosed appropriate paper work for a) and b)’

Etc, Etc. I thought. I looked at the post-it note

‘Ray,

Unless it stops, it’s option b)

Yol.’

I stuffed all the paper in the pocket of the damp jacket, headed out to the car.

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