A Fistful of Knuckles

CHAPTER FIFTEEN: THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING

Sam stepped up to the frosted glass doors of Gene’s office, went to push them open, then paused.

He’s not on the other side of those doors. Just go straight in.

It didn’t seem right, barging in without knocking. Although, in his head, he knew he’d find nothing but an empty desk, an empty chair, a few empty bottles of scotch, his heart still braced itself for a relentless Gene Hunt earful.

‘Make a habit of bursting in on a lady when she’s about to do her ablutions do you, Tyler? That might be how they carry on in Hyde, but in my manor you treat your guv’nor like you treat your old chap — with respect, consideration, a mind for his privacy. Comprendezvous?’

Sam pushed through the doors.

Gary Cooper stared grimly from the poster for High Noon. Three darts with cross of St George flights jutted from the bullseye of the battered dartboard. An array of trophies and engraved pewter trinkets gleamed dimly from the top of a rickety filing cabinet. An opened packet of fags lay invitingly on the desktop, and the stale smell of panatellas hung in the air.

The familiar props that Gene surrounded himself with now looked unbearably forlorn, like the pipe and the slippers and the half-finished book Sam remembered seeing the day his grandfather died.

‘The old bugger’s not dead yet,’ Sam said out loud. But even so, he found it painful to look at Gene’s empty chair, its backrest and seat molded to the contours of the guv’s now absent torso and arse.

The doors clattered open, making Sam jump, and there stood Ray, chewing his gum and appraising Sam coldly with his pale blue eyes.

‘Measurin’ up?’ he asked curtly.

‘Ray, what are you talking about?’

‘Working out your new colour scheme for when you move in? What’ll it be — pooftah pink? Or back-stabbing yellow?’

‘Don’t be an idiot,’ Sam countered. He grabbed a file from Gene’s desk. ‘I only came in here to get this.’

‘Oh aye?’

‘Yes, aye. This is the guv’nor’s office and it’s staying the guv’nor’s office, so don’t you go round this department spreading rumours that I’ve got ambitions. You hear me?’

Ray shrugged: ‘I can’t stop the rumours.’

‘Well, don’t add to them.’

‘There’s plenty flyin’ about already.’

‘Oh yes?’ said Sam, planting himself firmly in front of Ray. ‘Thrill me.’

‘They’re saying he won’t be coming back.’

‘And who’s they?’

‘Who’d you think? Folk.’

‘And you listen to what ‘folk’ have to say? Coz these are the same ‘folk’ who’ll tell you that black people have a natural sense of rhythm, and cheese gives you nightmares, and the Americans are doing autopsies on aliens out at Roswell. Grow up, Ray. The guv’s on sick leave, he’s not been pensioned off and he’s not in the morgue.’

‘I know that,’ said Ray. ‘Just so long as you remember that too. Boss.’

‘For God’s sake. I came in to get the file on Denzil Obi. We’ve got a murder investigation in full swing, guv or no guv — and CID don’t grind to a halt just because Gene’s laid up with a bandage round his head.’

Clutching the file, Sam pushed past Ray — but Ray blocked him. They glared at each other, nose to nose, eyeball to eyeball.

‘Loyalty,’ Ray intoned, under his breath. Sam tried to shoulder past him but Ray wouldn’t budge. ‘Loyalty before ambition.’

‘What do you take me for?’

‘Do you really want me to say it? Eh? Boss?’

Indignant, offended, Sam shoved Ray hard enough to send him falling backwards through the swing doors. All eyes in CID were instantly on them as Ray stumbled against a desk, spilling a full ashtray onto the floor. In the next moment, Ray was coming back at him, throwing a punch. Sam ducked it and drove his fist into Ray’s stomach, angling the blow upwards into the underside of his ribcage. It was enough to knock the breath clear out of him. Ray doubled up, gasping, helpless, a sitting duck for a fist in the face or a boot right up his jacksie. Sam felt his blood hot in his veins, his temper boiling within him. He clenched his fist … then relaxed it.

Step back, he thought. Step back from the brink.

He looked up at Chris’s worried face peering at him from behind a mountain of piled papers, and Annie staring shocked and wide-eyed from behind her typewriter. It was only then that he realized that his face was pulled into a snarl, and he was breathing hard through his nose like a baited bull.

Who do I look like, I wonder … he thought.

Without a word, he offered his hand to Ray. Red-faced and still struggling to breathe, Ray glared up at him.

‘Shake my hand, Ray.’

Ray made no move. Did he see Sam self-consciously mirroring the guv’nor’s behaviour? The argie-bargie, the shove through the doors, the blow to the guts — it was all such classic Gene Hunt. Would all this just strengthen his conviction that Sam was trying to step into the guv’s off-white tasseled loafers?

‘All I want is to keep the Obi case on track in Gene’s absence,’ Sam said. ‘Let’s fight the bad guys, eh, Ray? Not each other.’

Reluctantly, Ray took Sam’s hand and grasped it.

‘You okay, Ray?’

‘… I’m okay, Boss.’

‘Good man.’

‘Little boys,’ Annie muttered to herself, shaking her head.

‘Can I have everyone’s attention, please,’ said Sam, addressing the team.

‘You’ve already got it, Boss,’ put in Chris, still looking nervous. He edged round from behind his desk and shuffled anxiously towards Sam, ready to run at the first sign of trouble. Ray heaved himself painfully into a wheelie chair, and Annie perched herself on the corner of a desk.

Sam looked round at them, very seriously, and held up the Denzil Obi file. ‘As you all know, the guv’s out of action for a few days. So, until he’s back in the saddle, I’m assuming temporary — temporary, Ray — responsibility for the Obi case. We’re at a crucial point. We can’t afford to be delayed by being a man down — even if that man is the guv.’

‘It feels like the guv’s still here, they way you’re carrying on, Boss,’ piped up Chris.

‘Leave it, Chris,’ Ray wheezed. He looked hard at Sam, then seemed to soften. ‘Every ship needs a skipper.’

‘And every skipper needs a deputy,’ added Sam. ‘Which is what I am. A stop-gap. A caretaker in the guv’s absence. So let’s have no more of this rubbish about me gunning for the top job and get back to nicking villains, okay?’

Ray, Chris and Annie answered as one: ‘Yes, Boss.’

‘Right. Now, as you know, we’re looking after Spider down in the cells. His life’s in danger, and that’s the safest place for him. But we’re not a hotel, and the poor bugger can’t stay there indefinitely. So, he’s agreed to act as bait to lure Patsy O’Riordan into a trap. I’ve set up a fight between them — a bare-knuckle fight, a nasty one, a grudge match between the two of them to settle their feud once and for all. They both want the other one dead, and we’re going to use that to our advantage.’

‘I don’t see how this fight is going to incriminate O’Riordan,’ said Annie. ‘It still doesn’t prove a link between him and Denzil.’

‘You’re right,’ said Sam. ‘The fight itself won’t prove anything at all. But how we use that fight could nail this case once and for all.’

Everybody seemed to be paying him attention. Even Ray.

Excellent. They’ve got their minds back on the job, not on Gene, not on me and Ray coming to blows. They’re concentrating … and they’re accepting me as the guv’nor, at least for the time being.

‘The fight is nothing but a means to an end, a distraction,’ Sam explained. ‘It gets me close to Patsy, and the closer I get to him, the more likely he is to talk. Now, if I’m wearing a wire, we can record everything he says. The man’s got a certain degree of cunning, but he’s not Magnus Magnusson. If I get him talking — and I play it right — I’ll get him to say something to incriminate himself. It might just be a tiny detail, something he lets slip without even realizing it. If he thinks he’s getting his chance to get his revenge on Spider, he’ll be pumped and excited … just the frame of mind where I’ll be able to nudge him into a boast or a threat or something that betrays his guilt.

‘But we need more than that. We need a witness who’s prepared to testify. And I think I’ve found one. Tracy Porter, Patsy’s girlfriend. He used her to get at Denzil. She was the one who made Denzil unbolt his door to let her in the night he died. She was there. She witnessed the whole thing. She could tell us everything that happened, but she’s terrified — and with good reason. Patsy beats that poor girl black and blue, and she knows only too well what she can expect if she grasses him up to the police.

‘So — while Patsy is distracted at the fight, I want you, Annie, to get hold of Tracy. She knows you. You can talk to her. With Patsy well out of the way, you can you persuade her to give a statement, to name Patsy as the killer and testify in court against him. You think you can manage that, Annie?’

Annie looked straight back at him and said: ‘No.’

‘Is that ‘no’ as in ‘no’?’

‘That’s no as in ‘no way’, Boss. She won’t say a word.’

‘Then you’ll just have to try.’

‘Of course I’ll try, Boss. I tried before but couldn’t get a word out of her.’

‘This time it’ll be different.’

‘Not in her head it won’t,’ said Annie. ‘Just because Patsy’s off fighting somewhere won’t make her feel safe. You’ve seen her. She’s nothing but a punchbag for that bastard. If you think her body’s a wreck, just imagine what state her mind’s in.’

‘She’s right, Boss,’ said Ray. ‘Lasses like that always stick up for their fellas.’

Sam chewed his lip, thinking the problem through. ‘Offer her anything. Offer her protection. We can take here away, put her somewhere safe. Tell her it’s what we did with Spider, and he’s been perfectly safe in our care. Make her see that cooperating with us is her way out of this awful life she’s trapped in. We can help her, protect her, but only if she makes a statement. After that, we can put Patsy away for life. Make her understand that, Annie.’

‘I’ll do my best, Boss,’ said Annie, shrugging.

Sam wanted to impress on her how vitally important it was that they secure that conviction against Patsy. Couldn’t she see what was at stake here? Couldn’t she see that this wasn’t just about putting Patsy away, but about saving themselves — saving Annie herself — from whatever the hell it was that was out there that wanted to hurt them so badly?

No, she doesn’t see it. How could she? She senses that something’s wrong, but for her it’s just a vague feeling of unease, half-remembered dreams, confused recollections of nightmares. She doesn’t see things as clearly as me. She doesn’t have that little girl haunting her and goading her — and she hasn’t seen the devil in the dark.

‘Well, folks,’ he said. ‘That’s my plan. How’s it sound to you guys?’

‘Iffy,’ put in Ray.

‘And why’s that?’

‘Too complicate by ‘alf. The guv’d never go for all that round-the-mulberry-bush bollocks.’

‘Well, as it happens, he’s already pissed on this plan from a great height,’ Sam admitted. ‘But not even Gene can piss on me all way from central hospital, so there’s not a lot he can do.’

‘Are we back onto loyalty?’ Ray said, fixing him with that look again.

‘For God’s sake, Ray, I’ve told the guv how I intend to proceed with this operation and he voiced no objections — admittedly because he wasn’t feeling too clever, but that’s by the by. I’m not doing anything behind his back — and if we get the result we’re after, he’ll be the last one to complain about it when he returns. We’re all on the same side. We all want the same thing. We have to work as a team, with the tools we’ve got available, and make the best of the situation. At the end of the day, that’s all that matters …’

And here he found himself looking at Annie. All at once she seemed to him unspeakably vulnerable. He could almost see that awful devil in the dark looming out of the shadows behind her, its eyes glowing, the venom dripping from its fangs, its taloned claws slipping round her throat.

‘… All that matters is that we nail Patsy O’Riordan. Right to the wall, guys. Right to the bloody wall. Chris, are you up for this?’

Chris shrugged: ‘If that’s the orders, Boss. But what am I supposed to do?’

‘I’ll be with Patsy, wearing a wire. You and Ray will be nearby, picking up everything that’s said and recording it. If he lets slip something really juicy — something we can use to nick him then and there — then I’ll want you both as back-up so we can arrest him. Failing that, you’ll be able to warn Annie in advance of Patsy’s return. We can make this work. We can do it — but we’ve got to be smart, and we’ve got to be careful, and we’ve got to work as a team. Well? Are you with me on this?’

There was a silent pause.

It was Chris who broke that silence: ‘I’m with you, Boss. I’ve defeated Hammer Hands O’Riordan once before … I can do it again.’

‘I’m with you too,’ added Ray. And then, with a grudging hint of respect: ‘Boss.’

‘Are you all waiting for me to join in with this boysy moment?’ asked Annie, folding her arms. She sighed, rolled her eyes, and said: ‘Yes, yes, I’m onside too. Stone me, it’s the ruddy musketeers round here, ain’t it.’

Chris suddenly burst out with: ‘Athos! Bathos! Davros! And …’

He searched frantically for the last one.

‘We get the idea, thank you, Chris,’ said Sam.

Chris cursed, clicking his fingers and trying to dredge his memory: ‘The guv’d know the name of the fourth one!’

‘Ask him when comes back,’ Ray suggested.

‘It’s d’Artagnan,’ said Sam. But when Ray shot him yet another hostile look, he realized that it would have been better not to have said anything at all.

Sam went down to the cells and found Spider powering his way through a series of rapid press-ups.

‘How are you doing, Spider?’

His face red and streaming with sweat, Spider ignored him, until at last he spat out: three hundred and fifty! And with that, he was done. He sat himself on the cell’s meager cot and towelled his head and neck.

‘Keeping yourself in trim,’ said Sam. ‘Excellent. Well, it looks you’ll be safe to leave here very, very soon. I met Patsy last night. I’ve persuaded him to fight you.’

Spider stopped dead and glared at Sam. His jaw muscles clenched, making the tattooed spider on his neck ripple and flex.

‘The whole thing’ll be a sting,’ Sam went on, ‘just like we talked about. All you have to do is be there. No fighting. No danger to you. Just be there; provoke him — make him say something that reveals his guilt. I’ll be wearing a hidden microphone, I’ll capture every word he says. We can nick him, Spider. We can have him. Thirty years to life, in the hardest bloody prison in the country. You with me on this?’

Still panting, Spider nodded curtly. He seemed sullen and unfriendly. Sam wondered if he was preparing himself, mentally as well as physically, for a showdown with Patsy. Did he not understand that the fight between them would all be for show, that no actual blows would be exchanged? If all went as Sam hoped, they’d have Patsy in handcuffs long before him and Spider got the chance to clash.

‘Remember, Spider, this whole thing is about arresting Patsy O’Riordan. If you can somehow goad him or provoke him into admitting his guilt, that’s worth far more to you and me and all the rest of us than trying to batter his brains in. It’s a fight, Spider, but one that won’t be won with fists, but with this.’

Sam tapped the side of his head.

Spider stared hard at him for a few moments, then said at last: ‘I’m not dumb. I know what’s what.’

‘Good. Then we’re on the same side. Are you feeling ready for this?’

‘I’m feeling ready.’

‘Sunday night. Eight o’clock, just outside the fairground.’

‘I’ll be there,’ said Spider, his voice emotionless.

‘You’re doing the right thing, Spider.’ Sam turned to go, but paused in the cell doorway: ‘You won’t understand this, Spider, but I want to see Patsy O’Riordan put away as much as you do. I want it for … for different reasons. It’s important. It’s really important.’

Spider said nothing. He was drawing into himself, focusing his energies, narrowing down his thoughts until nothing existed except the fight.

If it helps him to treat it like a real fight, then so be it, thought Sam, heading away from the cells and back to CID. How will he react when we arrest Patsy before he can get a single blow in? Will he feel cheated? Will he turn all that channelled rage on me instead?

‘I’m in control of this operation,’ he told himself firmly as he strode away from the cell. ‘I’m in control. I’m totally in control.’