The Last Days of Johnny Nunn E-Book

Nick Triplow

• Herausgeber: No Exit Press
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Seitenzahl: 461

Beschreibung

'Completely immersive... a terrific book' Ann Cleeves 'This is that rarest of things, a thriller with a social conscience' The Times Career campaigner Fraser Neal continually clashed with local businessmen, most recently over the council's selling publicly-owned social housing in the Docklands to private developers and displacing vulnerable residents. Until he's found dead in an alley behind Tennessee Fried Chicken's wheelie bins. Neal was also a police informant – or so he said. DS Max Lomax of Special Operations says he wasn't. No one believes him. Max's reluctant inquiries into Fraser's murder take him through the rundown estates, church soup kitchens and graffitied shopfronts of southeast London. He's unaware that his investigation is linked to Johnny Nunn, a former boxer living on the streets, who has given everything to the search for his missing daughter. For five years Johnny has been consumed by a vision of finding his girl and bringing her home, but now he allows himself to be drawn into another family's tragedy. Johnny knows the only beaten man is the one who's stopped fighting. The killers may not.

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Praise for Nick Triplow

‘Mesmerising’

Financial Times on Never Walk Away

‘An astute and relevant thriller with real psychological depth and plenty of atmosphere. Highly recommended’

Crime Time on Never Walk Away

‘A lesson in top-notch thriller-writing’

Carolyn Kirby on Never Walk Away

‘An exhaustively researched, brilliantly crafted recounting of the turbulent life of one of crime fiction’s most influential authors’

Howard Linskey on Getting Carter

‘Triplow manages to extract several noteworthy points from what might seem to be the unprofitable wreckage of a wasted life – a major achievement as he has had few primary sources to work with’

Nicky Charlish, 3am Magazine on Getting Carter

‘Exhaustive, informative, incisive and a damned good read… you’re in for one hell of a ride’

Martyn Waites, Crime Time on Getting Carter

‘Triplow is unsentimental in his study of a man whose work offers much to admire. Perhaps this fascinating portrait is the beginning of an overdue revival’

Ben Myers, New Statesman

‘Triplow does a fine job of demonstrating why Lewis’s work should be rediscovered’

Jake Kerridge, Daily Telegraph on Getting Carter

‘Triplow’s writing is always elegant and perfectly at the service of the material’

Barry Forshaw, Crime Time

THE LAST DAYS OF JOHNNY NUNN

Nick Triplow

In fact you are secretly somebody else.

You live here on the city’s edge

Among back lanes and stable-blocks

From which you glimpse the allegations

Of the gardening bourgeoisie that all is well.

Sean O’Brien – ‘Somebody Else’

Contents

Cover

Praise for Nick Triplow

Title Page

Epigraph

Dramatis Personae

Part One: Friday, 21 October 2011 – London SE14

Chapter 1: Max

Chapter 2: Max

Chapter 3: Johnny

Chapter 4: Max

Chapter 5: Johnny

Chapter 6: Slade

Chapter 7: Max

Chapter 8: Johnny

Chapter 9: Max

Chapter 10: Max

Chapter 11: Johnny

Chapter 12: Max

Chapter 13: Johnny

Chapter 14: Max

Chapter 15: Slade

Chapter 16: Johnny

Chapter 17: Johnny

Chapter 18: Max

Chapter 19: Johnny

Chapter 20: Max

Chapter 21: Downey

Chapter 22: Max

Chapter 23: Ali

Chapter 24: Johnny

Part Two: November 2011

Chapter 25: Max

Chapter 26: Downey

Chapter 27: Max

Chapter 28: Max

Chapter 29: Max

Chapter 30: Max

Chapter 31: Ali

Chapter 32: Max

Chapter 33: Ali

Chapter 34: Slade

Chapter 35: Johnny

Chapter 36: Max

Chapter 37: Max

Chapter 38: Max

Chapter 39: Max

Chapter 40: Slade

Chapter 41: Johnny

Chapter 42: Max

Part Three: December 2011

Chapter 43: Max

Chapter 44: Max

Chapter 45: Ali

Chapter 46: Max

Chapter 47: Max

Chapter 48: Johnny

Chapter 49: Ali

Chapter 50: Ali

Chapter 51: Max

Chapter 52: Johnny

Chapter 53: Max

Chapter 54: Max

Chapter 55: Ali

Chapter 56: Max

Chapter 57: Max

Chapter 58: Slade

Chapter 59: Downey

Chapter 60: Max

Chapter 61: Max

Part Four: 4 August 2012 – Super Saturday

Chapter 62: Max

Acknowledgements

Also by Nick Triplow

About the Author

Copyright

About the Publisher

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

Specialist Crime and Operations, Metropolitan Police, Scotland Yard

Assistant Commissioner Douglas Kilby, Specialist Crime and Operations

Commander Tessa Harding, Intelligence and Covert Policing

DS Max Lomax, intelligence analyst and former covert operative

DC Maggie Denny, seconded from Operation Trident Team

South Area Major Investigation Team, based at Lewisham Police Station

DI Andrew Conway, Investigating Officer

DS Ben Tait, Case Officer

DC Shannon Reed, Family Liaison Officer

DS Lloyd Ferris

DC Roy Tolly

DC David Cobb

Marlowe Estate / New Cross

Fraser Neal, community leader and campaigner

Alison Barnes, Marlowe Estate development worker

Johnny Nunn, former professional boxer

Alec Barnes, Alison’s father, Johnny’s old trainer

Lorraine Barnes, Alec’s wife

Jerome Standing, victim of wrongful arrest

Marcia Standing, his mother

Father Sam Downey, Parish Priest, St Mark’s Church

Shelly Dowd, St Mark’s Church volunteer

Nathan Dowd, her son

Sheila Okenia, St Mark’s Church administrator

Dwight Payne, drug dealer and philanthropist

Chris Clark, community centre manager

Lukshana Dahir, Marlowe Estate resident

Mrs Stearns, Marlowe Estate resident

Mr Tousi, Marlowe Estate resident

Rosco & Muhammed, youth project music producers / youth workers

Mrs Kathleen Archer, displaced Marlowe Estate resident

Carol Archer, her daughter

City Hall

Martin Dyce, Jamaica Dock project lead

Greg Walsham, elected member of the London Assembly

Rod Hutchings, Strategic Director of Planning and Regeneration

Kingdale Developments Ltd

Gavin Slade, business leader and driving force behind Jamaica Dock Development

Stuart Slade, his cousin

George Laska, private security contractor

Tony Fitzpatrick, private security contractor

Pallo Gashi, private security contractor

Stan Moffatt, their associate

Edinburgh

Kenneth Neal, Fraser Neal’s father

Susan Neal, Fraser Neal’s sister

Calum Neal, Fraser Neal’s uncle

Craig Neal, Fraser Neal’s uncle

Delaney & Coles, Solicitors

Jonathon Coles, human rights lawyer

Liz Delaney, human rights lawyer and associate of DS Lomax

Hannah Rees, Security and Intelligence Executive, ID International

Dominik Saski, electronic and surveillance specialist

Saturday 16 October, 1993

Woolwich, south east London

It was dark as they waited for the off. A dozen blokes in riot fatigues in the back of a Transit, sweating out last night’s beer and curry. Max had two sticks of Airwaves menthol gum on the go. It wasn’t working, not even close.

He checked his watch and got a dig in the ribs from McFarland, the senior man. ‘Will you sit still. Every time you fidget, I get your fucking elbow in my ribs.’

‘Just making sure you’re awake.’

McFarland appealed to the others, ‘You hear this? College wanker’s telling me to stay awake. You want to mind your mouth, son.’ He sniffed. ‘You smell like a dentist.’

Max chewed in silence as the convoy rolled into pre-dawn streets.

The brass had briefed the press. Today’s operation would send a message the Met was tackling extremism at its roots. Commissioner Condon and the Home Secretary had been all over Friday night news, priming Londoners for public-order unpleasantness. McFarland’s squad arrived in Welling ready to make sure of it.

Ron Forest nosed the Transit into its designated parking space. A slap on the side, handbrake on, and they waited to disembark. Gibson and Callard were nervy. Max wanted away. Get deployed and put into practice what they’d learned on tactical training, taking bruises from rent-a-mob squaddies on an earner at Gravesend.

A hurry-up shove from McFarland and Max was out in the morning chill. He helped unload the stowed gear and went to stretch his legs. He grabbed a brew from the tea van, sparked up a fag and wandered, coming across a line of old green buses last seen South Yorkshire, 1985. Kent boys up for the day were telling war stories: Betteshanger; Orgreave; Poll Tax. McFarland called Max for the boss’s final briefing.

Chief Inspector Whitley stepped up on a camera crate and brought the lads round. London was their city. These streets were theirs and God help anyone who thought otherwise. ‘Gentlemen, the British National Party headquarters and bookshop is on Upper Wickham Lane. The protestors intend to proceed along Upper Wickham Lane. We believe there are significant numbers of extremist agitators who are intent on staging a violent confrontation with the BNP. That is not going to happen. You’ll have memorised the alternative route the commander has ordered the march to take, diverting away from the bookshop. It will leave the rallying point on Winns Common at 10 o’clock. Protestors will be funnelled between our lines, which will be unbroken along the entire route, blocking potential exits. There will not be a metre we do not control. Once the march begins, these people are committed. Mounted officers and dog section will close in behind. No one leaves.’

Another departure from their earlier briefing.

Whitley asked, were there any questions?

A sergeant Max had got to know at Gravesend raised his hand. ‘Sir, what’s the contingency if we need to get people out, say, for medical reasons?’

Whitley again: ‘Let me be clear, no one is to leave the march. Those are the commander’s orders. I expect them to be carried out.’

The squad spread at regular intervals on Wickham Lane. Max was posted with Gibson a few metres to his right, Wayne Ackley and Callard farther on. Directly behind him, Plumstead Cemetery. ‘Must be the dead centre of town,’ cracked McFarland. A joke so funny he repeated it two minutes later.

The head of the march passed by on schedule. Up front, a Justice for Stephen Lawrence banner. Then the mass of protestors, Socialist Workers, TUC and Anti-Nazi League, Socialist Students and more Justice for Stephen Lawrence banners.

Veterans of previous demonstrations eyed the police with suspicion, unsettled by the changed tactics, unused to ranks of men in full riot kit, helmets, shields and two-foot batons on their belts. The message was explicit: you’re going nowhere we don’t want you to go. The boss told them, no chat. Expect violence. Be vigilant. Within half an hour, the miscalculation was obvious. For starters, numbers were higher than expected. These were no more anarchist agitators than he was. Parents with kids in buggies walked alongside mums and daughters. An older couple, tweedy, well-to-do, strolled by arm in arm as if they were on the prom at Eastbourne. The woman smiled. Max was stony-faced. She looked away.

On the opposite side of Wickham Lane, at the ridge of the hill, mounted officers appeared, silhouetted against weak sunlight. More units moved into place at the brow of the hill. Dogs barked constantly, their handlers winding them up.

Max received word police units had sealed off the agreed alternative route along Lodge Hill. Reserve squads were assigned to the barricades at the junction, creating a dead end that gave the body of the march no means of exit. At the cemetery, Max was ordered to maintain his position. The demonstration came to a standstill within minutes, thousands still making their way up the hill without realising the route ahead was sealed off.

As the crowd packed closer, a lad in a light blue anorak, Saltire flag patch on the sleeve, asked McFarland to let his sister out. She was sick, she couldn’t breathe, she had asthma. From where he stood, Max could see her expression, pure white-out panic. The Scots lad’s reasoned argument fell on deaf ears. McFarland used his shield to drive them back into the crowd. The brother protested. His sister pulled him away, ‘Leave it, they don’t care.’

Scuffles broke out in Max’s section. Plywood placards arced through the air. Demonstrators packed tighter as others joined from the rear.

An elderly gent wearing a black beret, Tank Corps badge polished to a shine, asked Max how they were dealing with the build-up? Behind him, a young woman with a kid in a buggy pleaded with Max to let her out. Police reinforcements, until now in reserve behind the cemetery, deployed forward. From the rising noise, the shouts and cracks of batons on shields, it was kicking off at Lodge Hill junction. Police loudspeakers, mounted on an overhead scaffold and intended for crowd control, were silent.

The Tank Corps veteran was back, the mum with the buggy clinging to his arm.

‘I’m sorry sir,’ said Max, ‘you can’t leave the demonstration. Stay patient, you’ll be fine.’

‘I know I will, son. It’s for this lady and her little girl.’

‘Just the same, sir, step back and you’ll be all right.’

It was bullshit and the old soldier knew it.

A grey-haired woman in a yellow ANL T-shirt and steward’s armband pleaded for the demonstrators to stay calm. Some sat down in the road. She raised her hands passively as she walked towards McFarland. He ordered her back.

‘I have to speak to someone about this. Who is in charge?’

‘Step back now.’

She put a hand on his arm. ‘Please.’

‘I’m telling you, step off.’

Her voice rose above the agitated crowd. ‘Let these people out. Can’t you see this is dangerous? It’s a disgrace. People are going to get hurt.’

‘They shouldn’t fucking be here, then.’

A bottle flew over the crowd and smashed against the cemetery wall. As the steward turned to see where it had been thrown from, McFarland hit her with his baton. She went down heavily, blood across her face.

Max heard hooves, hard and hollow on the road. Mounted officers riding through the penned-in crowd. Standing protestors dragged those still sitting to their feet. Max flexed his grip on the baton. The crowd surged, lifting him off his feet, carrying him back against the cemetery wall. He heard himself groan, winded by the press of bodies on his chest. Old London brick ground on crumbling mortar at his back. The wall shifted and buckled. Its top two thirds gave way. Max fell backwards, pinned under bodies over the broken wall. He was certain his spine would crack. Counting the seconds, until a hand reached through and hauled him free.

He doubled over, flung his helmet aside and caught his breath. McFarland and the others were nowhere to be seen, and neither were his shield and baton. He gained his senses, helping a man to his feet, blood smeared across his face, a deep gash across the bridge of his nose. He threw off Max’s hand. ‘You people make me sick.’

Class War activists in full-face crash helmets stepped through the chaos from the rear. Whitley’s anarchists had chosen their moment. Collecting armfuls of bricks from the half-demolished wall, they made their way towards the front line at the Lodge Hill crossroads. A big lad patted Max on the shoulder in passing, ‘Cheers, mate, ammo, nice one.’

Max recognised the Scottish girl he’d seen earlier, wheezing through tears. He held her steady as her legs buckled under. ‘Where do we go, please tell us where we go?’

Her brother pushed his way through the crowd, his anorak hood ripped and an ugly red welt around his throat. ‘For Christ’s sake, man, get us out.’

Max helped them across the wrecked wall at its lowest part. ‘Go around the cemetery and double back. Take a wide route, get on a bus, get a cab, go anywhere, get away.’

The sister wasn’t sure. ‘Our coach is at the car park. We’ve left our things.’

‘Do not go back to the car park,’ said Max.

They got the message.

Others followed. Max moved through the crowd looking for the woman with the buggy, but couldn’t find her. He came across a young boy, separated from his parents, maybe eight years old. He’d lost a shoe. Max carried him to the side and crouched down. What was his name? Who was he with? Max shouted above the noise. ‘Daniel Shaw’s dad, your son’s here, Daniel’s here.’ He was clear-voiced, composed. Daniel’s dad fell through the crowd and took the boy in his arms. ‘Where do I go, where do I go?’

Max helped them through the gap, ‘Keep going, mate. Keep walking, take a wide berth and stay away from the car park.’

He made sure they were safely away and was ready to go again when he felt himself grabbed from behind and dragged backwards, hit hard around the side of the head and knocked to the ground.

McFarland stood over him. ‘What the fuck are you doing?’

Part One

Friday, 21 October 2011

London SE14

1

Max

MAX LEFT THE DEAD man in the alley and walked into daylight. He took a hard moment to process what he’d seen. Hidden from view behind a phalanx of wheelie bins, Fraser Neal’s body lay slumped at the side entrance to the flats above the Tennessee Fried Chicken takeaway, his shirt sodden with blood and rain, a fatal stab wound to his chest.

Detective Inspector Conway followed Max out. ‘Bit grim.’

‘Fucking idiot,’ said Max.

Conway stopped writing. ‘Excuse me?’

‘Neal.’

‘You want to try showing some respect?’ Conway made a circular motion with his hand. ‘And elaborate while you’re doing it.’

‘He never knew when to keep his mouth shut.’

‘Enlighten me.’ Conway playing the innocent. It didn’t suit him.

‘He made a habit of airing grievances in public, but you already know that. It’s all over his socials and his press file. Better still, talk to anyone on the Marlowe Estate.’

‘Is that where he lives?’

‘And works.’ Max stepped to the kerb. Friday-morning rush hour in south east London, City-bound traffic was at a standstill

‘So you’re saying he’s off his ground.’

‘I’m not saying anything.’

‘Any thoughts as to what would bring him here?’

‘Maybe he had a train to catch.’ They were a stone’s throw from New Cross Station.

Conway wasn’t sure if Max was taking the rise. ‘I assumed he was one of yours.’

‘In what sense?’

‘A source, an informant. That’s what you deal in, isn’t it? Your thing. We found a mobile phone in his jacket pocket. Last number in the call log was yours. The only number, in fact.’

Max turned up his raincoat collar. His thing, as Conway put it, was whatever Assistant Commissioner Kilby decided at any given time. Conway didn’t know what he didn’t know.

Max stood back. Left of the alleyway, mid-refurbishment, stood 489 New Cross Road, a three-storey townhouse encased in scaffolding and plastic sheeting. Right side, 491. Three flats over the chicken shop, one occupied. A cashpoint so exposed it might as well have had a sign saying, ‘take my money, please don’t fuck me up’, then Red Cherry Cabs. The next three shop fronts were vacant, shuttered and graffitied, the third badly scorched – someone had set fire to junk mail shoved through the grille. If they were lucky, the last to sling the Tennessee’s rubbish or one of the Red Cherry drivers would have seen Neal arrive, or chosen not to. He moved in closer. The cashpoint’s street-facing camera was glued over. Best chance of CCTV would be the camera above Red Cherry’s doorway. He’d have started there, but the case belonged to Conway.

He surveyed the scene one more time, taking in access routes and exits. The alley gate was pinned open by the bins. He turned back to Conway. ‘Who called it in?’

‘One of ours. PC Des Aitken, driving off shift shortly after three this morning, saw something as he was passing. He doubled back and found Neal as you see him now. He phoned it in and did what he could, which wasn’t much. We got down here, set the cordon and made an initial search. Found the phone and called your number.’

A news crew was setting up on the corner of Wilshaw Street. Behind them, a solitary light came on upstairs in the Star and Garter. Max remembered it as a sticky-carpet boozer, an occasional stop-off when he couldn’t handle the thought of going home. The memory made him shiver. ‘Neal wanted everyone to tell him he was right, that he was entitled to speak truth to power as he saw it, irrespective of whether he could back it up. A lot of the time he missed the mark. If he didn’t get what he wanted, he went his own way.’

‘But he was your informant?’

‘He liked to think he was, but I never recruited him.’

‘Really?’

‘He came to us on spec. He’d been told we would be interested in what he had to offer. Turns out we weren’t.’

‘Interested in what?’

‘Something to do with dirty money and property developments south of the river. We didn’t get much further than that.’

‘Who put him on to you?’

‘He never said.’

‘Jesus, Lomax, it’s like pulling teeth. Educated guess?’

‘I don’t know, a wind-up merchant.’

The lights at Lewisham Way turned green. Whatever was snarling the traffic must have cleared. The cars moved forward slowly at first, steadily picking up speed, headlights reflecting in slick tarmac.

The CSI photographer emerged from the alley and dropped his mask. DS Lloyd Ferris did the same, shaking his head. ‘We’re ready to move the body.’

‘I’ll be there in a minute.’

Ferris guided the coroner’s ambulance onto the pavement, reversing close to the alley entrance.

A woman wearing bedroom slippers stepped out from a flat further along the street, feet scuffing as she walked, her hands resting in the front pocket of a grimy red tabard. She caught Conway’s eye and quickened her pace. Conway indicated to a uniformed officer, tipping his notebook towards the woman. The uniform walked alongside, asking had she been around late last night? Maybe seen a skinny white guy hanging around? She was just home from a night shift, she said. He took her name and contact details and came back to his post with the air of someone used to keeping his expectations in check.

Max turned to Conway. ‘Anything more you need from me?’

‘Absolutely there is. I want details on Fraser Neal’s connection with Special Operations, your peculiar set-up in particular. What was your arrangement? As it stands, we’re dealing with murder by persons known or unknown to the victim and that’s as wide open as it sounds. I want what you have. Was Neal connected to a specific case of yours? If so, I want chapter and verse. What’s the subject and who is involved?’

Max needed Kilby’s say-so before relaying information related to their work. Conway was well aware of it. ‘I’ll clear it with the boss and get back to you. Is that it?’

‘One other thing, Neal’s family are in Edinburgh. Does he have people locally we should contact?’

‘I’ve no idea.’

‘He’s one of yours. Maybe try giving a shit.’ Conway disappeared into the alley, cursing under his breath.

Max kept his head down against the rain as he walked the short distance from Westminster to his office in Carteret Street. Kilby’s text arrived as he climbed the stairs to the first floor: Your office, 11 am, K. He switched on the desk light and pulled Fraser Neal’s file from the live cases. Until that morning they’d agreed, for all Neal’s claims of inside knowledge, corrupt practice and dark money investments, he was too high-risk, too good to be true. Now he was too dead to be otherwise.

Kilby arrived, accompanied by Commander Tessa Harding. Six months since she’d taken over from Rothwell, this was the first time she’d made the trip across from the Yard. She took in his poky home from home, his books and radio, the collage of notes and reminders that took up the length of one wall. She pushed open the door to the anteroom, revealing the eight Chubb combination cabinets that held the SDS case archive. In there were names and cases that didn’t exist on any official database, nor would they ever if Kilby had his way. She gave Fraser Neal’s case file a dismissive glance. Television news ran quietly on Max’s PC. He went to switch it off.

‘No, leave it.’ Harding repositioned her chair to keep the screen in view.

There were other influences at play in Harding’s unexpected presence. Kilby was making a peace offering, though his motives were unclear. ‘Commander Harding has prior interest in Fraser Neal’s corner of south east London. We thought it would be useful for you to brief us both at the same time.’

Max began, ‘Detective Inspector Conway is treating Fraser Neal’s death as murder and is aware of his link with Special Operations. Neal had my number in his phone log – I gave it to him to contact me. Conway’s team are hitting the investigation hard, as you’d expect. Forensics are making the most of what they can at the scene, but it’ll be limited. It rained heavily overnight.’

‘There’s no doubt?’ said Kilby.

‘None at all. Cause of death a single stab wound to the chest, time of death provisionally between midnight and 3 am. No weapon at the scene – they were finishing the search as I left. Nothing helpful on CCTV so far. Officers are going door to door for potential witnesses. We’ll know more in a few hours.’

Harding was distracted by the TV news. Kilby asked Max to recap their recent history with Neal.

‘Neal was a career campaigner, based on the Marlowe Estate. He’s been critical of Lewisham, Greenwich and Southwark Councils’ joint development policies, calling it “urban cleansing”. If he’s known beyond that, it’s for campaigning against stop-and-search tactics, triggered by the in-custody beating and hospitalisation of Jerome Standing in December 2010. He ran a fundraiser, organised street protests and wrote several articles, most notably the one published in the Guardian, bringing the case and himself significant media attention.’

Harding’s shoulders stiffened visibly at the mention of Standing. The officers who’d put Jerome Standing in Lewisham Hospital had been under her command. Andrew Conway had been senior officer on duty. ‘We can’t avoid the media revisiting the link between Neal and Jerome Standing. But our connection with him has been around corrupt practice. Development contracts, corruption of public officials, money laundering and cover-up. If you’re jumping to conclusions about motive for his murder, those are most likely. They won’t be flying flags at half-mast over City Hall, but pissed-off bureaucrats tend not to resort to murder.’

Now Harding spoke. ‘You say corrupt practice. What’s his specific relationship with your work?’

Kilby said, ‘Lomax has been looking into dark money sources.’

Harding’s set expression told him this was news. Kilby gave Max the go-ahead to fill in the gaps.

‘We’re seeing a rise in numbers of tier one investors coming into the UK, entering on visas no other entrant would have access to. About half are Chinese, a large proportion are Russian and there are a mix of others. BRIC countries, Eastern Europe. It’s reasonable, given what we already know, to assume a fair chunk of what they bring is dirty. Billions in criminally gained capital. The kind of wealth that buys anonymity.’

‘Surely, none of this is new information, DS Lomax. Quite the contrary, it’s been this way for some time.’

‘Not on this scale. Gaining inside intelligence is nigh-on impossible. These people’s lawyers, accountants, bankers, estate agents, advisors and fixers are too deeply invested to call it out. Many rely on family connections.’

‘But it’s not dark money, is it? That’s peculiar to the US. Laws here—’

‘Are slow and ineffective – even when the intention’s there, and that’s not guaranteed, not by any means.’ Max weathered Harding’s stare and carried on. ‘We’re talking unaffiliated groups and individuals that exist to influence political process, using money we can’t trace to source. Offshore investors in jurisdictions we can’t touch. It amounts to the same thing, criminal capital buying influence with an eye to the political future.’

‘And this is your connection with Neal?’

Kilby took up a position by the window, his back to the street. ‘It’s more than that. Neal believed the Jamaica Dock Development in south east London was criminally funded. Dark-money payments used to silence opposition. We don’t think it stops there.’

‘He came to us with that proposition,’ said Max. ‘We gave him the opportunity to back it up.’

‘But he wasn’t officially an informant?’

Max shook his head. ‘I couldn’t take a chance on someone as unpredictable as Neal without being sure he could deliver. I told him back in June, unless he produced substantive evidence, we’d taken things as far as we could. After that, we had no contact until a month ago. He called and told me he had what we’d asked for, but he wanted money. We spoke again last week and he repeated the request.’

‘Had you paid him previously?’

‘Three thousand pounds’ seed funding. He had someone prepared to give us contract documents.’

‘And did the documents materialise?’

‘No.’

‘He wasn’t your registered informant, yet you gave him seed funding to bribe someone – let’s assume a public official liable to dismissal and investigation had they been exposed, which would, in turn, have led back to this office, to you.’

‘In my view, Neal was smart enough to know what the stakes were.’

‘I was told you called him a fool.’

Evidently, the hotline to Conway was in working order. ‘I said he was a fucking idiot. You can be both.’

‘So, you played him for as long as you could and cut him loose.’

‘We were in the process of doing that.’

‘While paying for non-existent information. That’s terribly generous of you.’

She gestured to Kilby. ‘I take it this was done without your knowledge?’

Kilby smiled. ‘Be assured, nothing is done without my knowledge. Fraser Neal included.’

2

Max

NEAL’S MURDER ROLLED IN and out of Friday’s afternoon and early evening broadcasts. With no new information from the police investigation, reports were a tearful parade of grieving friends and Marlowe Estate residents. A London News team doorstepped Jerome Standing’s mother. ‘It’s truly a sad thing,’ she told the reporter, who left her microphone hanging under Mrs Standing’s chin – if you could manage to blub for the cameras. Marcia Standing folded her arms and made it plain she’d say no more.

Max pulled up video clips of Neal in action: a Newsnight interview amounted to an adversarial set-up opposite the Jamaica Dock Development lead, businessman Gavin Slade; the ITV London News programme coverage at the march for Jerome Standing; and a YouTube clip from the summer’s opening of Clara James Community Garden on the Marlowe Estate.

For Newsnight, Emily Maitlis framed the dispute with a piece to camera. Behind her, a blue and black backdrop of Marlowe Estate and an image of the proposed refurbished high-rise, divided by a ragged diagonal slash. Watermark Olympic rings cut across both images. Gavin Slade was composed, erudite, in a well-fitted suit, entirely sure of himself. Neal sweated under the lights. He hadn’t shaved and his shirt was creased. Infuriated by the direction of debate, his arguments lost clarity. Max reran the last few minutes, starting with Slade: ‘These people aren’t in tune with what we’re trying to do. The greatest show on earth is coming to their backyard next year and they’re squandering the opportunity of a lifetime to make the most of it. It’s good for Marlowe Estate and it’s good for London—’

Neal cut across: ‘When you say that, you’re talking about expansion, economic prosperity for you and people like you, not the people that actually live on Marlowe Estate. When I talk about it, I see obscene wealth, embezzlement, nameless investors; our people locked out of their own community and denied the right to live in the streets they’ve lived in all their lives. The council is selling publicly owned social housing to private developers, displacing vulnerable residents in the process. They’ve done it with Pepys House and they’ll do it again with Jamaica Dock. We’re being ripped off.’

Slade smiled thinly, shaking his head throughout. Maitlis drew the piece to a close and moved on.

For the Jerome Standing demo, Neal was on more sympathetic territory. Outdoors on a cold spring morning with his people behind him, he found his voice: ‘All we’re saying here is Jerome Standing didn’t deserve the treatment he received. It could be any one of us, but statistically it’s way more likely to be you if you’re a young black man. Jerome was stopped and searched five times in two weeks, arrested for no good reason by an officer who was joyriding and had no reason to be there. Jerome was beaten and left in a cell. He might have died. Think about that. We’ve been here before. A black man assaulted and left to die in a south London street, only this time the perpetrators wore uniforms. We’re accountable for our actions, but the Met Police are accountable to us. We don’t give our consent to racist violence in our name. We seek justice for Jerome and all other victims of stop and search used as an excuse for intimidation.’

Max remembered the interview. It made for uncomfortable viewing then and now. Someone had needed to say the words, but not Fraser Neal in self-promotion mode.

He played the clip from the garden opening. Shaky handheld footage followed half a dozen excited kids running across the lawn and around a centrepiece water feature in a low, wide ceramic bowl. The shot cut to older folks seated on newly installed benches, drinking from plastic beakers, residents walking the paths between sensory beds, flowers in bloom, paper plates and the food table set up in a community centre. The camera turned on Neal, a rosy-cheeked grin, Hawaiian shirt, drink in hand. A woman’s voice off camera asked him to explain what was happening: ‘We’re here to open the Clara James Community Garden. Clara was an inspirational woman who lived around here over a hundred years ago and she changed the lives of a lot of people living with deprivation and not much hope. Our garden in Clara’s name shows there is hope, we have to come together. This is for all of us…’ He stood aside and let the camera take in the scene, the urban idyll.

Max sat back in his chair and clasped his hands behind his head. Less than a month after the video, parts of London went up in flames. Levels of street violence unprecedented for 30 years. Did he believe what Neal was selling? The cynic in him wasn’t sure.

He called Conway for an update. Neal’s sister was on her way from Edinburgh. Nothing more to add at this stage. He pressed Max for confirmation of Neal’s status as a Special Operations source. Max said he’d be in touch as soon as Kilby cleared the release of information.

On cue, Kilby appeared in the doorway. ‘I need some fresh air. So do you.’

It grew cold as dusk crept in. Kilby’s stride lengthened as they crossed Queen Anne’s Gate, slowing once they’d entered St James’s Park. ‘DI Conway released his press statement.’

‘I heard. I’m guessing that’s not why we’re here.’

‘It is not.’

‘You want to know what I left out of our conversation this morning.’

‘You might want to listen to this first.’ Kilby took a voice recorder from his pocket and pressed ‘play’.

The first voice was Fraser Neal at his most affable, the tone he used when he wanted something from you: ‘You know why I’ve come to you, because you’re sound. I wouldn’t be asking otherwise, but I need funds to make it happen. I can’t get it for nothing.’

The second voice was Max: ‘Is this you getting yourself on the telly again?’

A change in register from Neal, altogether more urgent: ‘I’m asking you to be reasonable. I mean it. Christ, it’s not even for me, but the risk you’re asking us to take.’

Max heard his frustration: ‘I know and it’s not taken for granted. But if you honestly want to do this, we’ll need to work it better. You’re not using the phone we gave you.’

‘It’s run out of charge.’

‘Not good enough. You call from this number, don’t expect an answer.’

‘I’m in the office. Your people said it was clean.’

‘Three months ago, it was clean. Have you kept to the instructions we gave you? No. So it’s not clean.’

‘Will you get me the money or not? If you can this week, I’ll get what you want, but I need the same as before. Soon.’

‘What am I, a fucking cashpoint?’

Laughter. ‘You asked me to find out and I’ve found out. You needed me to prove it and I’m proving it.’

‘If you can get me names, details, connections and proof they know where the money’s coming from, we’ll meet.’

‘Can you get the cash, or not? Because if not…’

‘I said we’ll meet.’

‘That was a month ago,’ said Max. ‘If he’d come up with the goods, I’d have met with him and taken it from there, but he didn’t.’

‘And he called on Sunday?’

‘Sunday morning, again in the evening. I didn’t take either call. He left a voicemail. More of a rant, to be honest. He said his phone was tapped, his computer hacked, his mail opened. He claimed he was getting cold calls that were nothing of the sort, set up to sound like a call centre, but the wrong kinds of voices. He said he needed his home and office reswept. He wanted us to pay for it.’

‘Tell me, why wouldn’t he use the mobile we gave him?’

‘He did at the start, but then inconsistently. He made the last call from the community centre office.’

Kilby said, ‘And he recorded everything. You don’t look surprised.’

‘I assumed he would. We know some of what he says is attention seeking and the rest is a means to an end, usually a pitch for cash. But he was genuinely shaken. I had someone I trust audit his systems earlier in the year, an industry-standard safety evaluation of each device, all uses, software, passwords, the lot. My guy installed software on Neal’s PC so he’d know if documents had been accessed or tampered with between each log-on.’

‘This was the man I told you to distance us from.’

Max scratched his head. One way or another all their sources were liabilities. Kilby knew that. But the mood had changed since their morning meeting. If he knew about Sunday’s call and had the recording, it came from Conway. ‘I’d handled him, step by step. We didn’t commit and we weren’t exposed. And, for what it’s worth, I think we were close to getting value from the association.’

‘Between self-publicity, personal attacks on senior officials, and heaven only knows what press attention.’

‘Apply pressure and if nothing comes of it, cut him adrift. That’s what you asked me to do and that’s what I was managing without blowing the house down. No one’s arguing he wasn’t difficult, least of all me.’

‘You don’t think his murder was connected with what he’d been doing for us?’

Max didn’t answer.

They came to a standstill as the path turned towards the Mall, streetlights visible between the trees. Max buttoned his coat.

Kilby wasn’t convinced they were clean.

‘You and Conway, how well do you know each other?’

‘Reputation only, until this morning.’

‘But you know of his professional relationship with Commander Harding?’

Max was circumspect. ‘He’d have reported to her as Borough Commander, South East. That’s where she was before, wasn’t it?’

They stepped off the path to allow a cyclist to pass. Kilby said, ‘Conway was on duty the night Jerome Standing was picked up. It was his DS out cruising with the uniformed patrol who made the arrest. Conway has a responsibility for how this was handled before, during and after. He didn’t come through the enquiry unscarred. My view is he should have gone.’

‘But he didn’t.’

‘No, he didn’t. Tessa Harding went to bat for him. Made sure the internal investigation focused attention elsewhere. If you want to be old-fashioned about it, Conway is in her debt. And full disclosure, I chaired the panel.’

Max sensed what was coming.

‘If there’s an outside chance Neal’s murder had to do with information he attempted to acquire, was in the process of acquiring or had acquired at your request, we need to know. I want you to shadow Conway’s investigation. Talk to people, get a feel for the neighbourhood and see who picks up the pieces in his absence. If you can get a line on his sources, so much the better. And if Conway looks like getting his hands on material we’d rather he didn’t, I want to hear it from you, not him or anyone else. I’ll clear the secondment.’

‘I can’t see Commander Harding being keen.’

Kilby looked over his shoulder. ‘Actually, it was her suggestion.’

There goes the neighbourhood, Max thought.

‘Last thing, for avoidance of doubt, this is not a long game. Keep it tight. And regular updates, please. I’ll be in touch.’

On his way home, Max picked up a bottle of Malbec and a pizza. The gloss was off the Friday night he’d planned. Angel Heart was next up on his rewatchable film session. Ten minutes in and his mind was wandering. He turned off the film with the pizza half-eaten and the bottle two glasses down. He dropped the needle on a Julie London LP. London’s smoke-and-honey voice and Barney Kessel’s simple, elegant guitar playing was timeless. He picked up his book, but couldn’t concentrate. By the time the needle lifted on side one, the book was beside him on the sofa and he was mentally cataloguing conversations had with Neal.

For the second night running, it rained hard. He stared into the dark, sharing his thoughts with the walls. He’d grown used to the anonymity of Carteret Street and didn’t relish leaving it for the ghosts waiting for him in south London. Of those, Fraser Neal’s was the one he feared least.

3

Johnny

IT WAS LATE SATURDAY evening by the time Johnny Nunn crossed St Mark’s Churchyard, a loosely packed rucksack over his shoulder, shaggy-haired and unshaven, the right side of his face bruised from a fight he’d had with a man who’d tried to steal his coat. The same coat was now heavy with rain. He should have let the bastard take it.

After walking all day, standing still was an effort. His calf muscles complained, his back ached. The last few miles he’d felt like he was walking on bone. His feet burned. As he joined the food queue, his belly gave a parched growl. A man he judged to be about his own age, maybe younger, eyed him warily and drew back. There was a chance they’d known each other in his former life, or he was someone Johnny had run into on the streets, but he doubted it. He’d have remembered.

St Mark’s Church food kitchen was the same as every other place he queued, mainly young people washed up on a tide of addiction, abuse, poverty and shit luck. It was the same across London and the towns he’d passed through over the last five years. It didn’t matter if you were a refugee in a country that didn’t want you, or unwanted in your own, you came here because you were hungry. No one was searching for Jesus.

Johnny couldn’t say for sure why he was here. The question had turned tricks since he’d woken up one morning a week or so ago and decided this was where he needed to be, somewhere he could name the streets without thinking. A counsellor he’d once backed against the wall called it ‘doing a geographical’. A deep yearning for the familiar, a feeling he claimed came to everyone sooner or later.

Well, here he was, geographically wet through and thoroughly pissed off.

Conversation was scarce as they waited for the kitchen to start serving. A teenage lad pitched a line to two girls about an empty flat where they could bed down. Before tonight, Johnny had only ever seen the boy – he knew him as Stan – north of the river. Except here he was, bright and breezy in Deptford, chatting up two girls who clung to their backpacks as if they were lifebelts.

‘It’ll cost nowt,’ said Stan. ‘Belongs to a mate from home, he’s away for a few nights. I’ve got the place to myself.’ Johnny had heard it all before. If the girls had the price of a bed, they’d have had their heads down by now. Stan made it sound like the Hilton, reeling off pros (no cons) as though he was flogging a knock-off tea service: You’ll ’ave a roof over your ’ed. You’ll be safe. One of you could stay here while your mate susses the place out. I’ve got a mate that runs a recruitment agency for the hotels, we can sort you out some work, off the books like.

‘We don’t know, is too far to travel,’ the girl’s accent distinctly Eastern European. Johnny guessed Romanian. Desperation flickered across Stan’s face, a sign he was shilling for someone. Neither girl trusted him, but the one with frightened eyes didn’t fancy a night in the rain. Stan appealed to her. ‘I’m tryin’ to do you an’ yer mate a favour. You want to spend the night gettin’ pissed on, that’s down to you. Seriously, it’s a good place. A mile down the road. You know Lewisham, Lewisham Station?’ They nodded without conviction. ‘It’s near there, Sedgefield House.’ He caught Johnny’s eye. ‘What?’

‘Just waiting,’ said Johnny.

‘Well, wait somewhere else.’

‘It’s a queue, son. Waiting somewhere else defeats the object.’

‘I know you,’ he said.

‘You don’t and you don’t want to.’

Stan thought about arguing but turned his attention to the girls hunched in sisterly conference with their backs to him. He danced into position to hear what they were saying. ‘Come on, girls. Keep it English.’

A second incomer vied for their attention as the queue moved forward. Middle-aged and well dressed, doing the posh bloke’s excuse-me through the queue, showing a photograph to anyone who’d spare a glance. Johnny picked up the words ‘daughter’, ‘Bethany’, ‘fifteen’. Nothing about him belonged in that place. Not his weekender’s Berghaus, his suede brogues, or his good-school accent that pegged him as a tourist from the suburbs. He cornered the Romanian girls, aiming the light from his mobile phone at the photo. They shook their heads at the pictures. He forced the photo into Stan’s hand. Tell me if you’ve seen her. Take the photo. Show it to your friends. She’s fifteen years old. Stan, who couldn’t have been much older himself, let the crumpled photo fall to the ground.

Bethany’s dad’s anxiety was contagious as he worked between huddled knots of kids. The more frantic he grew, the more they shrank from him. He’d reached the tail of the queue, insisting a terrified boy take a copy of Bethany’s photograph, when a grey-haired priest put a hand on his shoulder. Father Sam Downey.

Johnny turned away. The last person he’d expected to see. Sam Downey still saving souls at St Mark’s.

Bethany’s dad was suddenly all business. ‘My daughter hasn’t been home for three nights. These people aren’t taking any notice of my photograph. She’s a child.’ He choked back whatever he’d intended to say.

These people, thought Johnny.

Father Downey invited Bethany’s dad inside the church. Someone would explain the process for registering Bethany’s disappearance. They would make sure the right networks were aware. Downey spoke calmly about taking details, signposting websites and support agencies. Reassurance from a world Bethany’s dad could comprehend, one that was organised and appeared rational. Downey stopped short of saying they’d help him find his daughter. Johnny knew too well, chances were they wouldn’t.

Johnny picked up Bethany’s photo and straightened the creases, angled under the light. On the reverse was a typed label: Bethany Middleton Yr. 11, Coopers School, Chislehurst next to a phone number, an email address and a handwritten note: Please contact Keith and Rebecca with any information. Johnny wiped the rain-spattered school portrait of a teenage rebel in an oversized black V-neck. Behind the home-dyed fringe, the look in her eyes said she was already lost.

Conversation picked up as church volunteers set up outside, making their rounds, bustling with hot drinks and good intentions. A woman bundled in a purple fleece made a beeline for Johnny, offering a beaker of soup and a clingfilm-wrapped cheese roll. ‘My name’s Shelly. There should be plenty to go round, so if you’d like more, let me know.’ Her supervisor waved his encouragement from the church.

Johnny braced himself for well-rehearsed lines about living life in a good way and with the knowledge Jesus loved you even if you were lost, especially if you needed help with life’s challenges. He was ready to explain he was no longer on speaking terms with Jesus, but what he got from Shelly was a shy, kind smile. ‘I’m supposed to ask you some stuff about how you’re doing,’ she began. ‘If you’re unwell, if you need to see a doctor or anything? Sorry, I’ve only been doing this a few weeks. So, how are you?’ She brushed a wisp of dark hair from her eyes.

‘Cold, wet. You?’

‘Yeah. Same. Is there anything you need I can help with practically? That cut’s a bit nasty. We can get someone to clean it up. Niall’s here tonight, he’s a qualified nurse.’

He’d forgotten about the cut over his eye, another souvenir from the fight over the coat. He touched it with his finger. It had opened up and was bleeding.

‘It’s nothing,’ he said.

‘I could put some antiseptic on it if you like. No fuss or anything.’

‘Soup and a cheese roll’s fine for now, cheers. Thank you.’

Johnny took a half-step away, making it obvious the conversation was over. He pressed his coat sleeve hard against the cut.

Shelly made another nervous plea towards the supervisor, who waved her back. ‘If there’s nothing else, I probably ought to move on.’

She went to replenish supplies. The supervisor packed her up and sent her out a second time. She came past loaded up with hot-drinks beakers and a basket of Asda sandwiches. ‘He says I need outreach training. Must remember to tell people about the podiatrist. How are your feet?’

Johnny found a quiet corner to eat. Others had taken their food back to doorways on Deptford Broadway or the High Street in the hope their mates would be holding places. Some found company and sat chatting with volunteers, sharing food and cigarettes in the shadows around the old church. He caught fragments of conversation. Where was it safe to bed down? You know Karen, down Greenwich? Some pissed-up City tosser came out the Trafalgar, kicked the shit out of her where she’d bedded down. They’ve taken her dog to Battersea.

Shelly buzzed about the place handing out food and hot drinks, quietly encouraging. She was with the Romanian girls when a shouting match broke out on the Coffey Street side of the churchyard. Stan was in trouble, his fuck this and fuck you protest singing out across the open space. He was cornered by two men. Johnny knew both by reputation. Tony Fitzpatrick and Pallo Gashi, who was growling like a scrapyard dog, his face two inches from Stan’s. From the way they pushed him around, Stan was in hock to someone. Fitz had his hand in Stan’s chest, pushing him towards the road. Stan motioned to where the two girls were standing. ‘I’m there, man. Give me five minutes. What’s five minutes?’

So that was the deal, pick up the girls for these two. In exchange for what? Fitz dropped his hands in a what do I care? gesture. Stan nipped between him and Pallo. Pallo reached out and caught Stan’s hood, swinging him round. Stan’s trainers slipped on the wet stone and Pallo let go, sending the lad skidding down the kerb on his back.

They laughed. Fitz bawled at him to get up.

Before Johnny realised what was happening, Shelly had run towards Stan, putting herself between him and the two men. She held up one hand, pleading, still with a cardboard tray of soup cups in the other. Whatever she said, Pallo wasn’t listening. He grabbed her hair and punched her twice on the jaw. When he let go, she staggered forward, dropped and was still. Fitz gripped Stan’s arm and dragged him, limping, to a dark-coloured Nissan at the kerb. He shoved him into the back seat and yelled at Pallo to stop pissing about and get in.

The churchyard emptied. Young people scattered. Father Downey strode down the path. Johnny fell in behind as the priest kneeled to place his coat under Shelly’s head.

Johnny put a hand on his shoulder. ‘Best not move her.’

She’d been unconscious before she hit the pavement.

‘Of course, of course,’ said Downey. ‘Stupid, of course.’ He held her hand. Blood oozed through her hair from a head wound.

Johnny walked away.

Downey called after him, ‘Stay, please.’

He kept walking. The Romanian girls stood rooted at the roadside as if waiting for permission to leave. If they hadn’t grasped what was going on before, they did now. ‘You have to go,’ said Johnny. The sirens sounded close. He asked one girl her name.

‘Mira.’

‘Okay, Mira, I’m telling you, it’s not good for you to be here now. You have to move on.’ He hustled them as far as the Salvation Army centre.

The girls were reluctant. Mira said, ‘Where is Lewisham?’

‘Come on, you know what happens, it won’t be safe.’

‘But where?’

He gave them directions along Deptford High Street, told them which streets to avoid. ‘Mira, listen. Whatever it was Stan promised, I’m telling you it won’t be safe. I know what he does and this isn’t for you. It’s bad for you, you understand?’

Johnny left with the intention of putting as much distance between himself and St Mark’s as possible. But as he walked the backstreets, his route brought him back to the churchyard. Police made way for the ambulance, Father Downey still clutching his rolled-up coat. Shelly’s supervisor was pacing, occasionally stopping to pick up rubbish. Johnny pulled up his hood and huddled in a doorway. Judging by the still warm cup in the corner, someone had left in a hurry. Much of what was happening around Shelly was obscured, but he had one glimpse. The paramedic pulled the scarf from her face, her mouth hanging open as they lifted her into the ambulance.

He told himself there was nothing he could have done. He’d been too far away; he was too slow, too old. But it didn’t ring true. He should have done something. Alec Barnes used to say the only beaten man was one who’d stopped fighting. If that’s what he’d become, he had no right being here.

4

Max

MAX WAS TEN MINUTES late for Conway’s Sunday morning briefing. He was joining the team investigating Neal’s murder, at least until Kilby was satisfied there was no connection with the ongoing Special Operations investigation. Conway had been given no choice. He’d phoned shortly before midnight. As far as he was concerned, he didn’t owe Max a damn thing.