Ken Bruen - A White Arrest

‘If you want to stay on my good side, love, don’t bugger me about.’

She considered standing on her dignity, making a gesture for the sisterhood, telling him, with respect, to shove it, then thought, yeah sure.

And picked up the tickets, said: ‘I’ll need paying.’

‘Don’t we all, love — where’s Brant?’

Later: Roberts had just parked his car and was starting to walk when a man stepped out of the shadows. A big man. He bruised out of his track suit and all of it muscle.

He said: ‘I’m going to need your money, mate, and probably your watch if it’s not a piece of shit.’

Roberts, feeling so tired, said: ‘Would it help your decision to know I’m a copper?’

‘A bit, but not enough. I’ve been asking people for money all day, asking nice and they treated me like dirt. So, now it’s no more Mr Nice Guy. Hand it over, pal.’

‘Okay, as you can see, I’m no spring chicken, and fit? I’m fit for nowt, but I’ve a real mean streak. No doubt you’ll hurt me a lot but I promise you, I’ll hurt you fucking back.’

The man considered, stepped forward, then spat: ‘Ah bollocks, forget it. All right.’

‘Forget. No. I don’t think so. Get off my manor, pal, you’re too big to miss.’

After Roberts moved away, the man considered putting a brick through his windshield, or slash the tyres or some fuck. But that bastard would come after him. Oh yes, a relentless cold fuck. Best leave well enough alone.

He said: ‘You were lucky, mate.’

Who exactly he meant was unclear.

When Roberts got back home, he had to lean against the door. His legs turned to water and tiny tremors hit him. A voice asked: ‘Not having a turn are you, Dad?’

Sarah, his fifteen-year-old daughter, supposedly at boarding school, a very expensive one, in the coronary area. It didn’t so much drain his resources as blast a hole through them — wide and unstoppable. He tried for composure.

‘Whatcha doing home, not half term already?’

‘No. I got suspended.’

‘What? What on earth for? Got to get me a drink.’

He poured a sensible measure of Glenlivet, then added to it, took a heavy slug and glanced at his daughter. She was in that eternal moment of preciousness between girl and woman. She loved and loathed her dad in equal measure. He looked closer, said:

‘Good grief, are those hooks in your lips?’

‘It’s fashion, Dad.’

‘Bloody painful, I’d say. Is that why you’re home?’

‘Course not. Mum says not to tell you, I didn’t do nuffink.’

Roberts sighed: an ever-constant cloud of financial ruin hung over his head, just to teach her how to pronounce ‘nothing’. And she said it as if she’d submerged south of the river and never surfaced.

He picked up the phone while Sarah signalled ‘later’ and headed upstairs.

‘This is DI Roberts. Yeah, I’m home and a guy tried to mug me on my own doorstep. What? What is this? Did I apprehend him? Get me DS Brant and get a car over here to pick up this guy. He’s a huge white fella in a dirty green tracksuit. Let Brant deal with him. My address? You better be bloody joking, son.’ And he slammed the phone down.

As an earthquake of music began to throb from the roof, he muttered: ‘Right.’

Racing up the stairs, two at a time, like a demented thing: ‘Sarah! Sarah! What is that awful racket?’

‘It’s Encore Une Fois, Dad.’

‘Whatever it is, turn it down. Now!’

Sarah lay on her bed. Wondered, could she risk a toke? Better not, leastways till Mum got home.

Brant leant over the suspect, asked: ‘Have you ever had a puck in the throat?’ The suspect, a young white male, didn’t know the answer, but he knew the very question boded ill.

Brant put his hand to his forehead said: ‘Oh gosh, how unthinking of me. You probably don’t know what a puck is. It’s my Irish background, those words just hop in any old place. Let me enlighten you.’

The police constable standing by the door of the interview room shifted nervously. Brant knew and ignored him, said: ‘A puck is — ’ and lashed out with his closed fist to the man’s Adam’s apple. He went over backwards in his chair, clutching his throat. No sound other than the chair hitting.

Brant said: ‘That’s what it is. A demonstration is worth a hundred words, so my old mum always said — bless her.’

The man writhed on the floor as he fought to catch his breath. The constable made a move forward, said, ‘Really, sir, I — ’

‘Shut the fuck up.’ Brant righted the chair, said: ‘Take your time son, no hurry, no hurry at all. A few more pucks you’ll forget about time completely. But time out, let’s have a nice cup o’ tea, eh? Whatcha say to a brewski me oul’ china?’ Brant sat in the chair, took out a crumpled cigarette and lit it, said in a strangled voice: ‘Oh Jesus, these boys catch you in the throat — know what I mean?’ He took another lethal pull then asked: ‘Do you want to tell me why you raped the girl before the tea, or wait till after?’ Before, the man said.

Brant was like a pit-bull. You saw him and the word ‘pugnacious’ leapt to mind. It fitted. His hair was in galloping recession and what remained was cut to the skull. Dark eyes over a nose that had been broken at least twice. A full, sensual mouth that hinted at gentility if not gentleness. Neither applied. He was 5’ 8” and powerfully built. Not from the gym but rather from a smouldering rage. Over a drink he’d admit: ‘I was born angry and got worse.’

He’d achieved the rank of detective sergeant through sheer bloody-mindedness. It seemed unlikely he’d progress in the Metropolitan Police. It was anxious to shed its bully-boy image.

Special Branch had wooed him but he’d told them in a memorable memo to ‘Get fucked’. It made the Branch love him all the more. He was their kind of rough.

Outside the interview room the constable asked: ‘If I might have a word, sir.’

‘Make it snappy, boyo.’

‘I feel I must protest.’

Brant shot his hand out, grabbing the man’s testicles, growled: ‘Feel that! Get yourself a set of brass ones boyo, or you’ll be patrolling the Peckham Estates.’

Falls approached, said: ‘Ah. the hands-on approach.’

‘Whatcha want, Falls?’

‘Mr Roberts wants you.’

He released the constable, said: ‘Don’t ever interrupt my interrogation again. Got that, laddie?’

The C A club had no connection to the clothing shop and they certainly didn’t advertise. It stood for Certain Age, as in ‘women of a’. The women were of the age where they were certain what they wanted. And what they wanted was sex. No frills.

No hassle.

No complications.

Roberts’ wife was forty-six. According to the new Hollywood chick-flicks, a woman of forty-six had more hope of being killed by a psychopath than finding a new partner.

Her friend Penelope had shared this gem with her and was now saying: ‘Fiona, don’t you ever just want to get laid by a hunk and no complications?’

Fiona poured the coffee, laughed nervously. Emboldened, Penny urged: ‘Don’t you want to know if black guys are bigger?’

‘Good Lord, Penny!’

‘Course you do, especially when the only prick in your life is a real prick.’

‘He’s not so bad.’

‘He’s a pompous bastard. C’mon, it’s your birthday, let me treat you to the CA. You’ll get laid like you always wanted and it won’t even cost you money. It’s my treat.’

Fiona had already decided but wanted to be coaxed, even lured, and asked: ‘Is it safe?’

‘Safe? You want safe, buy a vibrator. C’mon, live it up girl — men do it all the time, we’re only catching up.’