Хилари Боннер - A Kind Of Wild Justice

Unfortunately he was called in by the senior investigating officer on an afternoon when he was least expecting it. He had spent far longer than he ought to have done that lunchtime in the pub and had also drunk far more than he should. Confident of spending the rest of the day doing nothing more challenging than the ‘paper shuffling’ of which he was so scornful, he had downed four or five pints of bitter, he couldn’t quite remember which, each after the first one accompanied by a large whisky chaser.

To make matters worse, the senior investigating officer was Todd Mallett. Detective Superintendent Todd Mallett. Mike had known that, of course, but he had tried not to think about it. Apart from anything else, it really rankled that the other man, whom Fielding had always considered to be thoroughly inferior to himself as a police officer, had ultimately achieved a rank far senior to his own.

Fielding had never doubted that he had both greater ability and greater intelligence, not only than Todd Mallett but than most of the officers he had worked with over the years. That made his failure to progress beyond the rank of DI all the more infuriating. Particularly as even he had to accept that the stagnation of his career was at least partly down to his own behaviour.

Mallett interviewed Fielding himself, rather than delegating the task to one of the lower-rank officers on his team and Fielding knew that was a gesture of respect. But he still couldn’t help the way he felt. Particularly after that ill-fated lunchtime session. From the moment he opened the door to the second-floor office which Mallett, who was actually based at HQ at Middlemoor, had been allocated, Mike seemed unable to stop himself appearing uncooperative and belligerent.

Mallett greeted him in his usual courteous, affable fashion.

Fielding, in the sort of mood which ensured that even the other man’s affability irritated him, responded abruptly; ‘Right, what do you want with me, then?’

He was aware of Mallett studying him appraisingly. Apart from anything else he supposed it would be highly optimistic to think that the detective superintendent would not notice that he had been drinking.

Certainly when Mallett spoke again he was no longer affable. He had greeted Fielding pleasantly and informally, and addressed him as Mike. The interview suddenly turned very formal and not a little hostile. His own fault again, Mike knew.

‘I suggest, Detective Inspector, that you watch your attitude. There is no doubt at all in my mind that you have already gone against the instructions of your senior officers in passing on certain information, albeit through a third party, to the Phillips family, and that by then encouraging them in every way you could to take out that ill-fated civil prosecution you opened the whole can of worms which has led to James Martin O’Donnell’s death...’

‘Look,’ interrupted Fielding, ‘I’ve been through all that with the rubber heel squad. None of you can prove a thing.’

‘Really,’ said Mallett, leaning towards Fielding across the small table which separated them. ‘Well, that’s down to Complaints and Discipline, although I wouldn’t be quite so sure of yourself if I were you, Inspector. As it happens, all I am interested in is any leads you may have acquired during your extremely dubious and meddlesome “enquiries” which could help us find Jimbo O’Donnell’s killer.’

The drink really got the better of Fielding then. Or maybe it was not just that. Whatever the reason, one of those flashes of the old devil-may-care stick-it-up-your-jumper Fielding, which he tried so hard to suppress nowadays, came roaring to the forefront. ‘For fuck’s sake!’ he yelled, jumping to his feet.

Todd involuntarily swung away from him as if half expecting to be punched in the face. Fielding wanted to punch him, too, and only just held back. Pompous, patronising, sanctimonious bugger, he fumed. But fortunately he had just enough restraint and sense of preservation left not to say so. He couldn’t stop himself launching into the rest of his diatribe, though. ‘Jimbo O’Donnell was one of the most twisted, evil, perverted bastards ever to walk free from a courtroom. Now he’s got his. And you think I’m supposed to give a fuck who topped him? Well, I fucking don’t! The world is a better place this week because somebody somewhere had the balls to do to the fucker what the whole of the justice system of this country couldn’t do — put him somewhere where he can never harm some other poor bloody kid. There is such a thing as natural justice, you know, Detective Superintendent.’ He did his best to make Todd’s rank sound like an insult and succeeded fairly well.

The other man eyed him impassively. ‘I think we’d better continue this interview when you’re not so emotional, Mike, don’t you?’ he enquired eventually, informal again, but very cool. He returned to studying the papers spread out on his desk in a gesture which clearly dismissed Fielding who made gratefully for the door without another word.

Outside in the corridor, Mike closed the door quite gently behind him and leaned against it for a moment or two. He had been surprised at how articulate he had been in the circumstances and was actually, on one level, quite pleased with himself.

But then the full implications of his outburst struck him. ‘Oh, God,’ he murmured to himself. ‘If that fucker reports me on top of everything else that really will be the end of my fucking pension.’ And, weaving very slightly from side to side, he set off down the corridor, heading for the back door out of the station. The only further decision he intended to make that afternoon was which pub he was going to go to. He certainly had no intention of returning to his desk. He might as well compound his own felony, he thought.

Anyway, he was just beginning to feel no pain, which more and more often was the only state he really liked to be in nowadays.

A week later a professional London heavy called Shifter Brown was arrested on suspicion of the murder of Jimbo O’Donnell. There was no formal announcement because ultimately Shifter was released without any charges being brought against him. But the news leaked around the Yard like flood water seeping through a wall of sandbags. Only quicker.

Joanna knew of Shifter Brown, although she had never met him. He was the kind of thug others hired to do their dirty work for them. Shifter would give a man a good going over for a hundred quid or so and throw in a broken leg or two for not much more. That was well known. Shifter looked the part. He was a big, muscle-bound guy in his early forties with thinning red hair and a broken nose. As a kid he had been a budding professional heavyweight boxer until a particularly vicious blow to the head dislodged the retina of his right eye and he had been banned on medical grounds from ever fighting again. After that it was back to the streets for Shifter. Officially he was a nightclub bouncer, standing patiently, trussed up in a dinner jacket outside some of London’s hottest nightspots, his thick neck threatening to burst open the collars of his shirts, which invariably seemed to be a size too small. But the word had always been that Shifter was up for extras. He had twice served time for GBH over the years. Nobody had ever been able to pin a murder rap on him, although he had been the primary suspect in at least two gangland killings, but there seemed little doubt that killing, too, was just a job for Shifter. All part of his business. The only difference was probably the price.

After all, that was more or less how he had got his name. He had been christened Arthur Richard Brown. They called him Shifter because he shifted people.

Reminiscent of the original prosecution of O’Donnell for murder, it seemed that just about all the police had against Shifter was circumstantial evidence. He had been seen at night by a witness bundling an obviously unwilling passenger, hands bound, the witness had thought, into the back of his white Ford Transit. The same van had been seen in Devon, parked, apparently empty, just off the army’s Dartmoor loop road by a range warden from Okehampton camp in charge of clearing the area for a night-fighting exercise. As a matter of record he had obligingly jotted down the van’s number before going on a quick recce of the area to ensure that the vehicle’s driver had not strayed into danger territory. On a further check visit to the spot where the Transit had been parked, the warden found that the vehicle had been removed and thought no more about it until after O’Donnell’s body was discovered, when he passed his invaluable information on to the police.