London Blues (24 page)

‘Who are you, then?'

Cox and Weatherburn were leaning against a black police saloon smoking. They looked precisely what they were: two fat unprincipled and probably corrupt Met detectives forever on the make. Two greasy bastards with short hair, tiny moustaches and crumpled suits from Burton's … and so unlike these other guys, whoever they were.

‘This is Inspector Cox.'

Cox threw his cigarette away and strode over to me.

‘You've given us a fucking song and dance tonight, haven't you?'

Weatherburn was quick to get his tuppence in: ‘A right little cunt you are. I should have been home with my wife hours ago.'

I was looking at Weatherburn when I saw a blur of movement in my peripheral vision. Cox was doing
something
. I couldn't quite decide what exactly … and then something hit the side of my face with force. I fell. My face was in a puddle and I could taste dirt on my lips.

‘That should give you something to think about, cunt.'

And then I was kicked in the ribs. It did not hurt at first and then waves of pain spread over my body and I was hardly aware of my wrists and ankles being tied with cord that cut into my skin like a blunt razor. Pain upon pain. It was as though it was happening to someone else.

I have blurred memories of being pushed into the back of
a car. Then the smell of leather as my face scuffed the upholstery. A long ride into the night. The pain of my shoulder and head. The pain in my wrists and ankles, incessant. My head spinning off into unconsciousness.

First my left eye opens. I saw the naked sun high above. Then slowly my right eye opens. The blinding sun, the blaze of noon. I am on my back staring into the sun. Perhaps I am sunbathing? Am I? Could this be what I am doing? It isn't.

I am on my back on a mattress on the floor of a small room. A cell. I am imprisoned by four walls, a floor and a ceiling. I and my mattress are the only objects in this box aside from a recessed light-bulb directly above me. There are no windows.

I am not moving and I do not know whether I can move. I decide to see what I can move. I must think what I can move and then decide to move it.

My hand. I will raise my hand that is situated at the end of my arm. So, my arm needs to be moved in order to bring my hand into view. Once that is done I can then attempt to move my hand.

My arm rises as I command it. It is naked as is my hand, but around my wrist are thick bandages through which blood has seeped. The blood is now dried. My hand moves but it takes all my reserves of energy.

I am tiring quickly and soon lapse back into the unknown. My consciousness drifts in and ebbs away again many times. I have no knowledge of time. Minutes, hours, days, years mean nothing to me. I am now living beyond temporal restraint. I have transcended it. I am free and I am unknowing.

I am sitting upright on the mattress. I do not know how long I have been here. I do not know where ‘here' is. It could be in
Aberdeen
for all I know, but I suspect it is in London. The two Met coppers were hardly likely to take me anywhere else.

The cell is very well insulated. Sounds may travel out of the cell but they do not travel into it. Sometimes there are far-off and distant rumblings but I cannot make out what they are. There is a metallic clank. It comes from the door. I look up and through the spy-hole see an eye looking at me. A key is inserted in the lock and the door opens. A young uniformed police officer in shirtsleeves walks in carrying a tray. Upon the tray is a cup of tea, a white bread sandwich, and some biscuits. The officer smiles at me.

‘How long have I been here?'

‘Nearly twenty-four hours … I'll put this down here.'

‘Why am I here … do you know?'

‘No, I don't. Inspector Cox brought you in. He's not back until tomorrow. Dare say he'll be in to see you then.'

I looked at the tray and wondered if I could eat anything. The officer saw my quizzical look and volunteered an apology: ‘Yeah, sorry about this. Sunday, you know.'

Sunday … the 7th of July, in the Year of Our Lord one thousand nine hundred and sixty-three. A Sunday like any other Sunday?

‘Where am I?'

‘You mean where's this?'

‘Yes.'

‘West End Central … I'll turn the light down a bit so that you can get some sleep.'

‘Was anyone else brought in with me?'

‘I wasn't on duty … and I wouldn't be at liberty to say even if I had been.'

‘I see … yeah. Have I been charged?'

Charging somebody while they're unconscious is a regular practice in London. I've known a couple of people it's happened to.

The copper didn't reply. I don't know whether he heard me or not. I asked the question again. He looked at me for a beat and there was something funny about his eyes as if he wanted to tell me something but couldn't.

There's nothing in the paperwork.'

He said this slowly and deliberately, weighing each word. There's nothing in the paperwork. This was like an uncompleted sentence with a built-in inference. There's nothing in the paperwork … but there
should
be.

And now he was gone. The door thudded shut and the lock was turned.

I sipped the sweet tea.

What was I doing at West End Central police station? Why here? Was Sonny here? Where was he? What was happening to him? More importantly, what was happening to me?

No answers would be forthcoming tonight, but tomorrow is another day. I will sleep now.

‘Up you get and down to the bog. You've got five minutes and five minutes only.'

A big burly sergeant. Grey hair and a red face. Perpetually wearing a look of manic outrage. Them and us. Civvies versus the police. Don't ever show them you're human. School of Trenchard. Monday morning at West End Central.

I'm led down a long corridor. Brickwork painted green to waist height and then an institutional cream-brown up to the ceiling. Chipped paintwork. The smell of vomit and disinfectant.

‘There you go, lad. Five minutes.'

I'm shunted into a small square room that contains a lavatory and a washbasin. I take a leak and look over my shoulder and see the sergeant peering through the spy-hole in the door. His eye doesn't move. He may consider watching prisoners piss a police perk.

There's one tap above the sink. The water gushes out, icy cold. I wash my face and hands as best I can with the sliver of ivory-coloured soap. I dry myself with the paper towels and place them neatly on the ledge of the sink as there is nowhere else to leave them.

The sergeant follows me back to the cell at the end of the
corridor. He doesn't say anything. His heavy breathing and wheezing and puffing echoes off the peeling paint and richochets about in the silence.

‘Do you know what's going on?' I say.

A pointless question but asked nonetheless. The sergeant ignores it. Civilians should only speak when spoken to. Any speech initiated by a civilian, and particularly a
question
, is at the very least an impertinence. The NCO mentality. Freedom through discipline and respect. The
Weltanschauung
of the sergeant-major. Where else could a bloke like this go after the Army but into the police?

Now get in there and let's not be having any more lip from you or you'll be in real trouble, Sonny Jim. This is what he thinks but leaves unuttered.

The cell door bangs shut. The lock is turned. Precise
military
footsteps fade into the silence.

I look around the cell but there is nothing to look at except the four walls, the door and the bed. A little self-contained universe that is all mine. My own ready-made reality for, I guess, as long as I like … as long as someone likes.

I ease myself down on to the bed and stare into infinity. The pain ebbs back into my body and I begin sweating. I imagine a big clock someplace with a second hand like a hammer on an anvil. One second after another. Consecutive seconds. Millions of them stretching ahead to the end of time. I'm going to be fully conscious of every last one of them until something happens. Billions and billions of fat seconds, each one longer than the last, because this is what it is all about. Waiting. Waiting and waiting. Letting you stew. Letting you fall prey to your very own anxieties and insecurities. Suspending you in a time warp where your defences are peeled away a layer at a time until you are raw and naked.

A couple of years ago I read Kropotkin's autobiography. He was locked up in the Peter and Paul Fortress in Moscow in a cell. He says how he was determined to keep his mind
and body together while imprisoned and he drew up this rigorous schedule of activities. He would do all sorts of mental and physical exercises each day. He'd walk 35 miles a day, backwards and forwards and around the cell. You have to keep occupied, keep active, keep busy.

I pushed myself up off the bed, moved it out into the centre of the room so I could walk around the walls, and paced the distance off. The room is square and each side is four paces exactly. My paces are about a yard, so one full circumnavigation is a distance of 16 yards. There's 1,760 yards in a mile. Sixteen into 1,760 is one, carry one, one, nought. One, one, nought. One hundred and ten: 110 circuits equal a mile. Add another 40 for clipping the corners, say. That's 150 laps to the mile. Begin now. Keep count. One lap. Two laps. Three laps. Four laps. I'm feeling better already. Five laps. Keep going. Six laps. Seven laps.

At 50 laps the door swings open and a young copper brings in a tray with a bowl of cold porridge and a mug of tea.

‘You a fitness fanatic?'

‘Only when I'm banged away in here.'

‘I'll put this down here on the bed.'

‘Thanks.'

‘What you here for?'

‘You're the copper. Shouldn't I be asking you?'

‘There's nothing on your sheet.'

‘That's because I've done nothing.'

‘Oh, yeah?'

‘Oh, yeah.'

Fifty-one laps. Fifty-two. Fifty-three ….

I completed two miles straight off. The exercise made me feel good. The achievement made me feel good. I was keeping busy. Now some mental exercises. I lay on the bed. I'd work my way through the alphabet thinking of
something
for each of the twenty-six letters. Countries? Colours? Famous people? Book titles? Yeah, book titles.

A for
Ape
and
Essence.

B for
Billy
Budd.

C for … C for … C for …
Crime
and
Punishment.

D for …
Dombey
and
Son.

E for –

‘Right, lad! Come with me.'

The words are out before the door is open. It is the fat sergeant bristling with
purpose.

He comes into the cell, looks me up and down, looks around the place to see if I've nicked anything, and says I'm to follow him. ‘They've got a few questions for you.'

‘Well, as long as it is only a few. I'm a busy man.'

‘You're too clever by half, son. Too clever by half.'

Here's the interview room. A square room about the size of my cell. A table and three chairs. Two of the chairs are
occupied
. The two CID blokes who ‘nicked' me last night. One of them is, presumably, Inspector Cox. They both stare at me like I'm a radioactive dog turd.

‘Here you are, sir.' says the fat sergeant.

There's no reply. They're just staring.

‘Sit down there,' the sergeant orders.

I sit down and face the two detectives across the table. They are both smoking. They are both still wearing those cheap Burton suits. They both look like a couple of villains which, I guess, is what they are.

‘We'll call you later, sergeant.'

‘Sir.'

The door bangs shut.

‘I'm Inspector Cox and this is Inspector Weatherburn.'

The statement hangs in the air like a bad smell. Am I supposed to be impressed? Am I supposed to say ‘Oh, in that case, I'm bang to rights on this one, guv'? Or should I say ‘I'm very pleased to make your acquaintance'? I say nothing. These are a couple of self-proclaimed ‘crime busters' – bent coppers who get good publicity in the cheap Sunday papers. Always on the make.

‘You're in dead trouble.'

‘I am?'

‘You are. You were in possession of a stolen car in which was found a quantity of dangerous and illegal drugs.'

‘And?'

‘And you'll go down for it. Get a spell inside. You are obviously an individual who deals in these substances.'

Substances. What a strange word! Sub-stance. Substances.

‘When are you going to charge me, then?'

‘This is serious.'

‘I'd like to see a lawyer.'

‘He'd like to see a lawyer,' says the silent one. They chuckle. They're preening themselves on knowing something I don't.

‘A lawyer isn't going to be much use to you.'

‘None at all.'

‘In that case … let me see one for laughs.'

‘He's a joker.'

‘Ain't he?'

‘What's this all about?' I ask.

‘It's all about you being in dead serious trouble.'

‘So you keep saying.'

‘Dead serious trouble.'

‘Where's Sonny?'

‘Sonny? Who's he?'

‘The black guy I was with in the car.'

‘We don't know any Sonny. You're the only one we know. You are quite enough for us … but if you want to give us some names it would look good for you in court. They might even knock a few years off when we say you've helped us.'

There's some cat-and-mouse game going on here. They're putting on the frighteners, softening me up. They're after something else, but what I don't know.

‘Drugs are a very serious offence and you're going to have the book thrown at you, lad, unless ….'