Michael Greenhalgh’s head is throbbing.
His stomach has begun to hurt.
He can’t figure out why he’s still standing up. He’s bleeding so much, his body’s so trashed, he knows he should be falling. He should be slumping to the floor.
Three young thugs stand before him but he towers over them all. He can’t see their faces. They’re clear enough but he doesn’t take in detail for their faces must not matter. Since his nightmare began he’s not wanted to admit the ugly faces are for real. It’ll mean the bastards are going to kill him. And that will send him mad. The manimals will have won.
One of them tough-guy talks and flicks open a switchblade. Dumb gangsta speak streams from between jewel-studded teeth riding a putrid stink of bad breath. Up comes the blade, slitting Greenhalgh’s septum, making him cry. His mouth is so swollen he can’t speak properly but he disses the pint-sized tosser anyway. Instantly feet dropkick him and something hits his face so hard he might have collided with an anvil. It’s grubby lino slamming into him, like cobbles did in the alley when he took a dive after he’d been shot.
The carbonated water thing happens in his nostrils.
He senses the crunch of his breaking teeth.
Then it’s human punch-bag time and they lace into him again. As the frenzy of violence advances he writhes and swears at them from a skidmarked pool of blood. Nikes come at him relentlessly. Before he blacks out he sees squashed stinking cigarette ends fanned about his face.
*
Events are moving quickly.
Brittle blackness parts, as though he’s crawling from beneath a heavy veil.
Another pain in his body. He thinks it’s the bullet wound but sees a syringe with a teardrop hanging from the needle-end. It pricks him. Hot liquid it injects makes his muscles spasm and contract. He senses an expanding pressure, a liquid thing, drilling at his flesh. It pumps into his arms. His legs. His body. The needle goes deep. Cold less extreme as a drugs-induced heat fills him up. Darkness comes again then light comes again.
And now an expanding numbness while the scum squabble over him like dogs fighting over a bitch on heat. Animals, he hears himself say, gritting what’s left of his front teeth, ODing on adrenalin as they beat him senseless.
Filthy murderous animals.
*
Losing it now.
Really losing it.
Outside in freezing cold. Somewhere in the vile inner city. Shuttered windows. Sunken stone flags. Stink of smacked-out, self-absorbed, depraved underprivilege.
Being dragged from a bloodsoaked car boot.
Something hooks over his head then he sees a rope lasso-chucked over a streetlamp. Scum grab it when it comes down and suddenly he’s throttling, flying up and away. Everything goes kaleidoscope crazy. Light of day passes to a dark frosty night. His heavy body pulling cracks his neck as a hangman’s noose hoists him up by his head.
*
Going higher. Up to a distant city.
Up to the stars.
Unable to breathe. Francis Bacon’s Screaming Man superimposed with Michael Greenhalgh’s huge gaping mouth. The big backbencher himself. Working-class kid made good, surrounded by a bouquet of greedy microphones, forefinger jabbing at a massive Westminster crowd, timing another cluster bomb of words. Notorious Tory MP for Ackebourne East, the papers said. Fascist bastard who wants to bring back hanging, nastier editors have said. But it was a brilliant speech which caught a nation’s angry mood.
Now the maverick speaker squeals like a terrified kid. The frightened baby contained within all men suddenly released. Screaming, crying. Screaming, crying. Party and politics. That awesome feeling of adulation before doting masses. Lust for power and prestige. They don’t matter a damn.
A shiny metal streetlight bends above him as he kicks as he dies. Shadows from his lynching work graffiti-caked walls. Wrists taped behind him, he thrashes and chokes and bleeds and spins, seeing a million streetlights flung across a clear Mancunian night.
*
Cold sweetish-smelling liquid drenches him then pump-action shots blow bits of him away.
Then a huge blinding flash and fire leaps up. His body pulls unbearably, making his eyes petechia pop. But curtains finally are closing. The struggle is at an end.
Heavy curtains. Salubrious curtains. The most wonderful curtains he’s ever known.
DS David Kowalski watched the opening titles to ITV’s Early Evening News do the crazy aerial zoom thing as they raced up the Thames.
Skyscrapers flew past. Big Ben whizzed close, morphing to ITN’s studios at Marsh Wall, emblazoned like a giant Wurlitzer against night sky. CG letters rolled in as a guy’s OTT tabloid telly voice announced the show was coming live from London.
Next came the sexy girly newsreader. A super-slick blonde young black woman who hit screen so fast it’s a wonder the camera didn’t bowl her over as it swept in riding the swish, flash, and subwoof thud of a laserbolt. While hi-octane music vadoomed she stalked from hot neon seeming all boobs, legs, and high heels. Skirt chopped off below her naughty bit. Cuffs shoved back.
Voiceover man introduced her.
Big music died.
‘Hello,’ she said chummily.
CG hotspot pinging from digitally enhanced teeth, she turned to camera two and got to it, saying gravely, ‘Britain could see the return of capital punishment, civil liberties groups are warning tonight. Public outrage sweeping the country since the brutal murder of Tory MP Michael Greenhalgh has prompted Ministers to act. Rumour has it the controversial new Crime and Punishment Act may soon be passed, while the Guardian newspaper claims secret “death chambers” could be commissioned at some of our biggest prisons.
‘As if these allegations aren’t enough, ITN can reveal top secret meetings have taken place at Chequers. We believe senior civil servants and police chiefs attended, along with prison officials from the United States, and representatives from the European Court of Human Rights.
‘Meanwhile, will the Prime Minister address calls for a referendum on capital punishment? If so, when might it be? Let’s go live to our political editor to find out.’ High-angle shots of a vast crowd had crept slow-mo behind her while she shot her intro. Now they did a neat CG mix as she swung to face them, asking, ‘How’s the atmosphere at Westminster, Richard?’
Kowalski saw an anxious plump face slide on screen. Snow cut across camera as the guy observed gloomily, ‘It’s electric, Sam. As you can see, thousands have gathered in anticipation of the dead MP’s Bill passing successfully through its first reading.’
In front of the crowd, a giant videowall ran Greenhalgh’s last public speech. Enormous speakers pumped his booming voice across the square. Gunship searchlights swept a sea of tiny heads, making it seem like a pop concert instead of a political rally.
Fists punching, Greenhalgh banged on about his pet subject.
Hanging the bastards.
Flogging them.
Stringing the buggers up.
An ex-coal miner, remnants of his rough Yorkshire accent worked his vowels.
‘Ladies and gentlemen, our society is deteriorating. Crime dominates our way of life. But are our children encouraged to nurture decent moral values by those who excuse crime because of the socio-economic forces which they claim cause it?’
‘No,’ roared the crowd.
‘No,’ he agreed, braced against his lectern so firmly it looked as if he might wrench it free and toss it from the screen. ‘Join me in condemning the grotesque politically correct forces slowly destroying us. As the most important General Election of modern times draws near, I beg you. Demand the return of capital punishment before it’s too late.’
Another triumphant roar erupted from the crowd as masses of tiny handheld Union Jacks waved patriotically. Then Kowalski saw Greenhalgh’s gargantuan leering face switch to numerous tiny facsimiles, each the size of a domestic TV. Just as quickly the massive face came back from another angle, working with the robust voice to deliver a stream of acoustic hi-energy relentlessly bombarding the wintry night.
The woman again. ‘We can see the size of the crowd, Richard. Is the mood confrontational? Will demonstrators clash with the police?’
‘I think it’s unlikely Sam. This rally has been orchestrated to show how angry the public is about crime and punishment. What’s extraordinary is how the dead MP still makes his charismatic presence felt. He said things which are so politically incorrect as to be unthinkable. He voiced a widespread belief that everything’s on the slide and that unless something’s done soon, crime will undermine the stability of British life.’
Back to the woman, stuck behind a virtual desk made from translucent shifting light. ‘And by lynching him,’ she said, heading to the first bunch of ads, ‘it’s like the underworld thumbed its nose at a popular desire to bring back capital punishment?’
‘Absolutely. And with the Tories at an all-time high in the polls, and no Free Vote in the Commons, the Government will be accused of gerrymandering political advantage. Especially if it uses its powers of veto, if the Bill is blocked by the Lords.’
Kowalski had seen enough.
Standing in front of the TV he popped a can of Stella. He was heading the inquiry into Greenhalgh’s horrific murder but needed to see what was happening in London to help get his head round what he’d just dug up. Still in uniform, still disbelieving, he pulled his phone and switched it back on. While it jingle-jangled to life he looked at a glossy Weekend magazine on the couch, taking him back to the day his life caved in and his nightmare began.
No, his living hell. His squeaky-clean 28 year old face was on the cover. Gunship helmet stuck proudly under an arm like a football.
The posh woman journalist described him as a devoted husband and a committed young cop known for his ruthless determination. It was the butter-coloured hair bit he didn’t like because it sounded fake-dyed. But she meant well and had been bothered to come up north to interview him for real, before writing moving copy to go with:
POLICE HERO’S TRAGEDY
TOUCHES HEARTS OF MILLIONS
They were in wrong place, wrong time. Caught between a shop window and a stolen Transit. The pathologist said death would have been instant. Kowalski knew what that meant. Human bodies were basically bags of liquid offal. If they hit something hard at high speed, they splattered.
Composing himself, he got Vanessa Aysgarth’s number and face on his phone. Her platinum hair was shorter on her Skype pic. Unlike some snootier middle-class birds he’d dealt with in TV, she wasn’t up herself. Her lovely refined voice was always open and never condescending. She was interviewing him in the morning for a Crime in Britain special she was shooting with TV frontman Hunter about Greenhalgh’s killing.
Knowing he might endanger Vanessa’s life, Kowalski hesitated before hitting the green button. If he shot the call he’d violate his employment contract. Screw that for a lark, he thought, scrambling the line in case bastards were snooping.
Mark Addison blew cigarette smoke and said, ‘About sodding time,’ as red lights made green and he trod the X6’s gas pedal with a size 13 booted foot.
Twin tramlines split snowy dual carriageway down the middle. Ashton Road East it was called. A656 running straight out of Manchester. Usual mess of junkfood drive-ins tangled with inner-city crap. Locals took the piss and called it Downtown Droylsden. It wasn’t somewhere Les Dawson thought up for a mum-in-law gag but was home to Robertson’s jam and first place in the known universe to weave towels by machine loom. As if anybody gave a toss. Notables included guys from pop groups 10cc and Take That. Amazingly Davy Jones, lead singer of The Monkees, grew up there.
Addison was a big ex-cop. Way over six foot. Pushing fifteen stone but all solid, no fat, with short prematurely grey hair. His hands took up as much room at the wheel as two bunches of bananas. Some cops disliked him saying he’d the sort of face you never got tired of kicking in. Not that they’d had chance. He packed in policing when he realized there was more money in IT. He was no ball brain, either, when it came to business but was a legit limited company. Last filed accounts showed a net profit of £150k from fingering various dodgy corporate pies such as Chief Commissioner Driscoll’s two fat companies. Think of the devil. As he did sixth gear and went for a head scratch up popped Driscoll’s ugly mug on the phone parked at the dash.
‘Yeah,’ Addison said, his voice so deep it might have been put through a voice morpher for Dr Who.
‘Leviathan has landed.’
He meant David Kowalski.
‘He’s just called Vanessa.’
‘Do we know where he went?’
Kowalski was up to something. Guys had tailed him when he left the station but lost him because he switched off his phone on his way home.
‘No, but he probably knew he was being followed. As a consequence you’re on your way over to his place to check his PC for a virus. A nasty one’s going round.’
Unable to contain his dry wit he threw down a trademark measured pause. He was young for a chief cop. Hair so short his phone pic made his bullet head look shaved. Dark eyes owned his sallow face, giving him a mean look which played games with a pseudo piss-posh voice, forever tanked on sarcasm.
‘Let me guess,’ Addison said, picking up the pause and running. ‘I’m to waste his hard drive.’
‘Totally and absolutely.’
‘Special instructions?’
‘I’ll sort it with forensic.’
‘Understood.’
Addison made short work of his cigarette. Out came smoke. Down went driver window. Through it went the butt. Screw speed cameras if they clock me he thought, as the window came up and he took off.
Most drivers were only touching thirty when they could have done forty. Addison did sixty thinking bollocks to the snow. When you had friends in high places, speed traps didn’t matter.
Vanessa, alone in her Midland Hotel room, was on the phone to David Kowalski.
On the dressing table a cartoon birthday card declared, ‘Orgasms start for sexy girls at 40’. Some clever dick had crossed out 40 and scribbled 42 above it in felt-tip. She was 41 for another week. An old friend had got to her early from the States.
They were interviewing David at Greenhalgh’s lynch scene tomorrow, on his day off. He’d spent the past few minutes saying he was thinking of quitting the police and moving to Spain. He’d hinted at it last time they filmed with him, soon after Greenhalgh was killed.
Slurping from a can he cut to the chase.
Greenhalgh might have been a sacrifice to forward the cause,’ he said. ‘He wants to bring back hanging. The Government wants to push it through. A surefire way to get the country behind it would be to bump him off and get everybody baying for blood.’
Vanessa had to admit the MP’s death was mightily convenient but crazier things had happened. She knew he’d been snatched from his Jag after the chauffeur was shot by a sniper. A bunch of unpronounceable extremist terrorist fundamentalists owned up for the killing when the body was found. Just as quickly they denied it and Tweeted angry adjurations.
‘Can you prove anything?’
‘Not yet. But Driscoll showed me the interim report this afternoon and it’s gonna be a whitewash. Only he doesn’t know I’m onto something that’s gonna blow the lid off this whole bastard thing. But I need to go back to CPHQ first, to check some CCTV stuff.’
‘What of?’
‘I’ll tell you tomorrow, love.’
‘Jesus Dave. Why ring to say you might be onto something if you won’t tell me what?’
‘Trust me love. I’ll cosy with you when I know. I need to be sure to protect my informant.’
She didn’t push it. Partly because she could have done without this tonight which she wanted to be cosy, candlelit, romantic. Partly because she knew him well enough to know he was lonely and would talk serious when he was ready.
They’d first interviewed him for a series they made about modern police life. Instead of the usual fly-on-the-wall tosh showing stupid people abusing their democratic freedoms, it focused on home lives of the officers. Dave was lead featured cop but by a terrible fateful coincidence lost his wife and daughter when they were killed in a police chase. His story made for heartbreaking telly and was tipped to win a BAFTA. He was back in the public eye after Driscoll, to some police hoo-ha, had let him front the Greenhalgh case. Privately Vanessa was amazed he hadn’t fallen to pieces facing so much misery. Whenever they spoke she had to keep commiseration from her voice.
‘Are you willing to say anything on camera?’
‘I think I’ve got to, love.’
‘Won’t you need permission?’
‘Strictly speaking, yes. But I’ll use the right language.’ Before he could say any more she heard his front door buzz in the background. It set his dog Ted off barking. ‘Shit. I’ll call you back, love. Maybe I will tell you tonight.’
Kowalski heard a freight train passing the house. Triple-glazing muted its thunderous roar.
‘Shut it, Ted,’ he shouted at the kitchen door while he waved the TV dibber to knock back sound. Biting a choc HobNob he crossed to the front door and smacked the intercom, asking caller for some ID.
‘It’s Addison,’ said Addison.
Ted and the rumbling train fought his loopy basso voice.
‘There’s a virus going round. Some nutter’s targeting cops.’
Pissed off, munching HobNob, Kowalski shot bolts and let his visitor and train noise in. Snow swirled in the doorway. On a high embankment next to the house ISO container wagons groaned past seemingly never ending. Ribbed forty-footers. Double-stacked. Lost through the raging early evening blizzard.
Trust Addison to show now.
The dog went crazy next door.
Losing his rag, Kowalski bawled, ‘For God’s sake shut it Ted,’ as he headed back through.
Addison stamped his snowy feet on the step and followed him in. Ted’s shadow raced in the gap, bottom of the kitchen door, while he barked and sniffed, checking out the new guy’s smell.
Kowalski mean-mugged Addison and reached for his can of Stella. ‘Couldn’t it bloody wait?’
‘It’s standard procedure for all police PCs over two years old,’ he reeled off. Dumping his case he switched on the PC. It stood on a clear plastic table, scuffed from years of domestic aggro.
Kowalski didn’t want to talk. To make the point he aimed the TV dibber and brought back the Early Evening News way too loudly.
Greenhalgh was still on screen. Shouting. Waving. Fat reporter had snowy hair. Speaking over thudding overhead rotors, he rounded off his bulletin.
‘Passionate, gregarious, a brilliant orator forever waving clenched fists, he seemed to drag words from his mouth, working them in front of his face with his hands. He was probably the best example of how our PR obsessed, showbiz MPs use showbusiness techniques to market themselves.’
Cut to sexy black woman thanking him, smiling into a music sting as fancy chrome graphics wiped her and more ads crashed in.
Addison shot his case and rooted through it. ‘Shame about Greenhalgh,’ he lamented. ‘He was gaining Powellian notoriety.’ While the PC start-up-tuned to life he crossed to the fireplace and held up his cigarettes. ‘Do you mind?’ He’d to speak over the TV, which seemed to drive a growing tension.
‘Yes I do,’ Kowalski said, knocking back Stella.
Addison stuck away the pack.
‘How’s it going?’
‘It’s bloody tough.’ Stressing it, he gave the big tosser another hard stare. ‘But I manage.’
Commercial number two was more sedate. Surround-sound bees buzzed so realistically they might have exploded from a hive into the room. Still the PC booted, digi-chattering merrily.
‘You’re married, aren’t you?’ Kowalski asked.
‘Yeah I am.’
‘And you have kids.’
‘Two boys.’
‘I suppose I can,’ Addison said.
Pasting a sympathetic expression on his ugly mug, he turned to regard the mantelpiece with interest.
Pride of place belonged to a photo of Lucy and Melinda, bright with summer clothes. Sitting upright between them was daft-looking Pit Bull-cross Ted, panting tongue drooped. Melinda was red-haired, round faced, smiley big blue eyed, with a slightly puzzled expression. She had an ice-cream in one hand and held Ted by the other. Little Lucy spookily resembled her daddy. Small milk teeth shoved home the scary frailty of her age, despite a weird feminine maturity to her grin.
Addison went back to the PC when it had booted. Got caught up as he typed, not fully aware of what came out of his mouth. ‘If it happened to me,’ he said, stooping his massive body when news girl welcomed folk back on TV, ‘I reckon I’d bugger off to Spain too.’
Kowalski had only told Vanessa where he was thinking of emigrating.
On the phone five minutes ago.
Addison knew he’d put his stupid big foot in it and whipped out a Sheuze, silencered with a slimline acoustic barrel. Kowalski felt puke sick, now he’d sussed Addison’s evil game. His hand flew to his holster but it was slung over a chair near the window.
Mexican trade-off time.
‘You know I don’t want to do this,’ Addison assured him, waving for him to stick up his hands.
Addison crossed to kill the telly, hitting On-Off. Sudden, near deafening silence.
‘Driscoll sent you, did he?’
No need for the bastard to answer. Ted muttered and whined from the kitchen door.
‘What’s it about, Mark?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Yes you do.’
‘I don’t.’
‘Greenhalgh was killed to order, wasn’t he?’
‘I honestly have no idea.’
‘Driscoll knows that I know.’
Kowalski disengaged from the situation as he was reconciled to why Addison was really there. In his mind’s eye he saw his tiny house from space, zooming up lightspeed-fast on Google Earth. Aware of his minuscule insignificance in the scheme of things, he was overwhelmed by the enormity of what he now knew. Simultaneously he was demoralized by the essential corruptibility of the human condition. It all boiled down to the power of the gun.
‘I know you’re depressed,’ Addison told him.
He’d put on blue latex gloves to take apart the stack. To kill static, Kowalski assumed. Wrong. He knew why when Addison fetched the holster from the chair and pulled the gun. Checking it was loaded he flicked on the laser, coolly waving its thin red beam to and fro.
‘You’re so pissed off at being left on your tod you’re contemplating suicide,’ he added, rubbing it in, stuffing his own gun back in his coat near his tit.
‘Is that what Driscoll will put out? I don’t suppose any war’s fought without casualties is it? Did the bastard quote Leviathan?’ He considered trying to appease Addison but tightened his grip on the can of Stella. ‘Tell him I told you how force and fraud are cardinal virtues of war. He’ll realize I wasn’t a working-class dickhead after all.’ Sensing the end he crushed the can. ‘I’m victorious in death. Scum like you will enter Hell only to find you’re wading through your own shite.’
Suddenly, as the laser hit his forehead, he saw Lucy and Melinda reaching for him.
Jesus, he thought.
It’s true what they say.
The gun made scarcely a sound.
Just a hollow phut not unlike an airgun but more ballsy and very un-Hollywood. For a split sec he saw the slug, frozen real big, like a slick CG movie effect. Fine lines were machined against steel.
Subliminal impression.
Penultimate horror.
Nobody saw a bullet that was about to blow their head off and lived to tell the tale. Last thing he sensed as a nano impulse was a dull boom when everything went reddish black.
Addison eased off the trigger.
Cool thing about lasers was not wasting many bullets. Where the hotspot went, so went the slug.
Kowalski’s head popped as a dumdum bullet justified its fancy tech spec. The head’s contents splattered over tacky embossed plastic stones glued randomly across the chimneybreast. Next door the dog went spare when it heard the body slam into the fireplace. Crumpled can of Stella flew up, almost slow-mo, spraying its contents in a frothy mess. Stuff crashed from the mantelpiece. The bird and the kid eyeballed from the photo.
And as part of Kowalski’s skull shot towards him in such a tight space, Addison ducked.
Fast.