James Craig: The Enemy Within

‘It’s none of your business.’

He shifted in his seat, wondering if she actually wanted anything, beyond the satisfaction of baiting him. ‘Remind me, how many times have you been through my door in the last few months?’

‘Too many,’ was her heartfelt response.

‘Approximately.’

‘I don’t know, six or seven — something like that.’

Holt couldn’t resist turning the knife. ‘In every case, we’ve started out having the same conversation about miscarriages of justice. And, in the end, how many of your totally innocent clients have been convicted as charged?’

A stony look settled on the lawyer’s face.

‘You know the answer just as well as I do: one hundred per cent.’ He gestured towards the window. ‘And we’re hardly unique here; it’s the same story up and down the county. The police are doing a hell of a job under almost impossible circumstances.’ It was true, after a fashion. Along with all the extra overtime, the great thing about the dispute was that local magistrates were falling over themselves to convict anyone hauled in front of them on strike-related charges in double-quick time. The conviction rate in Holt’s police station had never been higher.

Millicent Olyphant crossed her arms. ‘Whatever happens in your kangaroo court, you cannot deny that the Williamson boy has been denied his basic human rights.’

Tell it to the judge.

She began recounting the list of transgressions on her fingers. ‘Denied access to counsel, denied sleep, denied-’

Holt held up a hand. ‘Was there something in particular that I could help you with, Millie?’

She stiffened slightly at his faux overfamiliarity, letting her hands drop into her lap. ‘I just wanted to let you know that we will be making an official complaint at the earliest opportunity.’

‘Fine.’ Holt tried his tea again. This time it was the perfect temperature. He took a mouthful, careful not to slurp in front of his guest. ‘That is your right, and that of your client. All I would say is-’

‘What?’

‘All I would say is, for once, why don’t you wait and see what happens? Wait and see if he gets off and then make a complaint.’

‘In particular,’ she said slowly, ignoring his advice, ‘we will be calling for an urgent investigation into why MI5 was drafted in to run the investigation.’

Shit, who told you about that? Holt wondered. No doubt, one of the guys in the station has been talking down the pub again. Bloody idiots. None of his colleagues were capable of keeping their mouths shut. He now realized that it had been a mistake to let Martin Palmer set foot in the station. Ah, well, nothing could be done about that now. ‘This is my investigation,’ he said firmly, ‘and my investigation alone. It has been conducted properly and your client’s rights have been fully respected.’

‘We’ll see about that,’ Olyphant sniffed. Getting to her feet, she headed for the door. ‘The union will fight this one all the way. And I am sure that the newspapers will be more than interested to hear further details of the security services’ involvement in Mrs Slater’s death.’

‘Good for them,’ Holt murmured as she disappeared into the hall. ‘Good for them.’

Sitting in the snug of the Queen’s Larder pub, on the edge of the smoky bubble that surrounded the lounge bar, Dominic Silver drained his bottle of fake German lager — brewed in Warrington by computers — and slowly got to his feet. ‘Right,’ he said, stretching his arms out wide, ‘fancy another one?’

Finishing his whisky, Carlyle gestured towards the bar with his empty glass. ‘Hold on, it’s my round.’ Before he could get up from behind the table, Dom gave him a consoling pat on the shoulder.

‘Don’t worry, Johnny boy. Leave it to me.’

Well, thought Carlyle, relaxing back into his seat, if you’re offering, why not?

‘Business is good. I can stand it.’

‘Yeah, I can well believe it.’ Earlier in the evening, before they had repaired to the pub, Dom’s little back-door, cash ’n’ carry drug-dealing service had cleared more than fifty quid. And this was hardly a one-off. When they had first arrived at RAF Syerston, word quickly got round that Mr Silver was open for business. Within a matter of days, Dom became the most popular man on the base.

Policemen were just normal people, after all, Carlyle mused. They liked their drugs just like everyone else. It wasn’t like Dom was trying to grow a business out of selling the stuff, rather, it had just kind of. . happened. Broadly speaking, there were two types of customers. Some, like Carlyle, needed a quarter gram of speed now and again to help them get through the soul-sapping drudgery of picket-line duty. For others, the dope heads, their interest in the contents of Dom’s knapsack was more recreational. Between the different groups, there were more than enough takers to sustain a successful business. What had begun as a little sideline had grown to the point where Dom was probably earning more from the drugs than he was from his monthly police packet.

The contradictions of a policeman selling illegal drugs were obvious. But Carlyle had quickly put any reservations to one side. Frankly, he didn’t care. As far as he could see, the problem with drugs was not with the drugs themselves but with their criminalization, which generated much pointless work for ordinary coppers like him. Besides, he himself was more than partial to a little bit of whizz now and again. And, above all, he could see that Dom’s entrepreneurial drive was impressive in its own way.

Dom gazed at a fat TV set hanging from the ceiling, near the bar. The news was on, volume down low, showing pictures from earlier in the day of police and strikers charging each other across a patch of waste ground.

‘Is that us?’

Carlyle looked up, staring for a few moments. The pictures could have come from their picket line or from one of half a dozen other locations. They all looked the same.

‘Dunno. Maybe. Hard to say.’

The news bulletin moved on to a story about a girl who was sexually assaulted and stabbed after a night out in Bath. ‘It’s all good news tonight,’ Dom sighed.

‘Yeah.’

‘All you can do is try and ignore this shit as much as possible.’

‘That’s a bit of an ask when you’re a bloody copper.’

‘When I go into business for myself, full-time,’ Dom mumbled, ‘you’ve got to join me.’

‘Eh?’

Dom pulled a thin spliff out of the breast pocket of his Belstaff jacket and held it in his hand, arm outstretched. ‘Business is just too good. I think I’m going to have to make the move.’ He gave a not-so-apologetic shrug. ‘It would be irrational to do anything else.’

Irrational? ‘But you only joined the police a year or so ago,’ Carlyle observed.

‘And look where it’s got me.’ Waving the joint in front of his face, Dom gestured towards the gaggle of grim-looking locals on the far side of the bar, who were studiously ignoring the two young coppers, muttering darkly into their pints of best bitter. He lowered his voice. ‘Standing here, in some total shithole, in the middle of nowhere, drinking shit lager.’

‘Fair point.’

‘We’ve been sold a pup, sunshine,’ Dom laughed. ‘Taken to the bloody cleaners!’

Carlyle could hardly disagree. After all, this was not what they had signed up for. It was not what they had gone through basic training for. He himself had expected to be pounding the streets of west London by now, chatting to shopkeepers, giving truants a firm clip round the ear and helping little old ladies across the road and maybe, on a good day, nicking the odd villain. Dixon of Dock Green made flesh, with youthful aspirations of graduating to The Sweeney. Instead, he was a paramilitary robot in the middle of someone else’s fight. Would Regan and Carter have put up with this crap? he sometimes wondered. Would they fuck.