A Death in Custody Read online

  Copyright © 2021 T. S. Clayton

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

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  ISBN 9781803138329

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  Matador® is an imprint of Troubador Publishing Ltd

  To Silvana

  The Deal

  In Custody

  In the Press

  Riot

  The Investigation

  Inquest

  Under Review

  A Change of Direction

  Reset

  The File

  Repercussions

  On Ice

  Tip-Off

  Hijack

  Post-Mortem

  A Summary Trial

  The Deal

  For Delroy, it began as just another deal – business as usual on Brixton’s Railton Road on a July afternoon in the late 1990s.

  For his customer, by contrast, their encounter was a completely new experience.

  Until a few days previously, PC Andrew Thomas had been a uniformed officer patrolling the centre of Nottingham, a black officer with a high visibility role, a personal message from the chief constable to the city’s black community. But now, using the name ‘Wes’, he was working undercover, trying uneasily, in the grey shadow of his cover, to come to terms with his new role. For, while in Nottingham it had been important for him not only to be a police officer but also to be seen to be a police officer, here it was different. Here, it was essential that his profession should go undetected, and, as he tried to adjust, his sense of himself as black and his sense of himself as a police officer seemed to lose some of their uneasy cohesion, and he felt disorientated.

  He walked slowly down the road, loitering with intent.

  “Don’t do anything,” DS Fletcher had told him. “Let them come to you.”

  It was a warm day and he felt himself sweating.

  His progress was watched critically from both sides of the front line.

  DC Matthews, operating the video camera from the empty flat over the electrical goods shop, muttered, “He’s just too fucking clean!” at which DS Fletcher and DC Jones, to whom this comment seemed not only apposite, but also, although they could not have said why, somehow incongruous, gave snorts of amused appreciation.

  The group of black men standing around the entrance to the alleyway on the opposite side of the road watched as Andrew approached them. The more experienced among them regarded him with suspicion, but Delroy, who, though a relative newcomer to this business, was an enthusiastic entrepreneur, sauntered forward to meet him.

  They sized each other up. Both in their late twenties and both the sons of parents who had come to England from Jamaica in the early 1960s, they experienced a brief intimation of mutual recognition, lost almost immediately, as they took stock of each other. Delroy, a little lighter skinned, small and jaunty, was wearing a loose-fitting black tracksuit jacket with a hood hanging down at the back, baggy black trousers and trainers, while Andrew, tall and serious, had on a white T-shirt, faded blue denim jeans and open brown leather sandals. (“Sandals!” DC Matthews had sneered contemptuously after Andrew had parted company with them at the police station earlier that day. “What does he think he is? A fucking hippy?”)

  Delroy was a good salesman. He gave Andrew a friendly smile. “Lookin’ for business?” he asked.

  Andrew took a deep breath. “Got a rock?” he countered.

  Delroy noted the unfamiliar Midlands accent. He looked around. “I can sort you out,” he said conspiratorially.

  “How much?” asked Andrew, feeling uneasily that he was doing this all wrong.

  “Thirty,” replied Delroy.

  Andrew tried not to appear too willing a buyer. “But is it good stuff? I don’t want no rubbish.”

  “Yeah, man, it’s good stuff. Do I look like I’d sell you rubbish? But, if you ain’t interested…” With a slightly theatrical gesture, Delroy, always the showman, began to turn away.

  “No, no, man, I’m interested,” Andrew reassured him urgently. “Look, I’ve got the money,” he said and began quickly to pull several banknotes from the left-hand pocket of his jeans.

  DC Matthews, watching through the viewfinder of his video camera, muttered, “Jesus!” and shook his head in disgust.

  “Wait here!” ordered Delroy and walked back to the group of men waiting at the entrance to the alleyway.

  “Gimme a rock,” he said. “He’s buyin’.”

  The rest of the group continued to regard Andrew with suspicion. “Me no like it,” cautioned Lewis, a big Jamaican with long dreadlocks. “Him look like Babylon to me.”

  Delroy glanced back at Andrew, who was waiting with his eyes intent on the ground, fearing that, if he looked up, his gaze might be drawn up to the window from which DC Matthews was filming, or fix, in too curious a stare, on the group of men in the entrance to the alleyway.

  Delroy turned back to Lewis, gave a slight shake of his head and declared confidently, “He ain’t the filth. He’s too scared. Come on. Gimme one.”

  He stretched out his right hand towards Lewis.

  Lewis looked around. “OK, man,” he said, shrugging. “Your funeral.” He brought his right hand folded into a fist out of his trouser pocket, reached forward and opened it palm downwards into Delroy’s outstretched hand, passing him a small creamy wax-like lump wrapped in clingfilm. As the exchange took place, the two men briefly shook hands. Then Delroy quickly passed his right hand in front of his face and transferred the rock of crack cocaine into his mouth.

  This done, he strode purposefully back to Andrew, who asked anxiously, “Have you got it?”

  By way of an answer, Delroy briefly opened his mouth, revealing the wrap of crack resting on his tongue.

  Andrew glanced round nervously at the passers-by, wondering if they had seen what Delroy had in his mouth. A police siren sounded in a nearby street, making him flinch. He fumbled with the banknotes which he still had in his left hand. “Thirty, you said, yeah?” he asked rhetorically and held out in his right hand one twenty-pound note and one ten-pound note.

  Delroy took the money with his left hand and then, with a swift movement of his right hand, removed the rock of crack from his mouth and placed it in Andrew’s still outstretched right hand.

  Andrew knew that he was supposed to put the rock of crack into his mouth, but he was a fastidious man, and he just couldn’t bring himself to do it. The clingfilm wrapping felt slimy to his touch, and he thought of Delroy’s saliva on it. He hesitated for a moment and then pushed the wrap into the right-hand pocket of his jeans. “Respect,” he said, self-consciously and without much conviction.

  Delroy eyed him curiously. The man seemed out of his depth. “’Nough respect,” he replied.

  Andrew began to walk down the street, trying to look casual, trying not to hurry. As he passed the group of men at the entrance to the alleyway, he avoided looking at them. They continued to regard him with suspicion and, when Delroy, following a few steps behind him, rejoined them, most of them shook their heads in disapproval.

  Andrew turned off into a side street.

  “Well done!” commented DC Matthews ironically, removing the cassette from his video camera. He turned to the others. “Hardly what I’d call an Oscar-winning performance,” he said, “but he’s scored. He’s pulled that little joker, Delroy Brown. Not my nomination for pusher of the week, but I suppose it’s a result.”

  DS Fletcher was in charge of this operation and determined that it should be a success. “Yeah,” he growled, “it’s a result. Don’t knock it. Now off you go.”

  DC Matthews caught the note of irritation in his voice. “On my way, Skipper,” he said. He put the video cassette he was holding into the pocket of his anorak and clattered down the uncarpeted wooden stairs which led to the door at the rear of the shop downstairs. He let himself out, crossed the overgrown yard behind the shop, opened the back gate and slipped out through it.

  In a quiet street not far away, Andrew got into the front passenger seat of the old red Ford Escort which was waiting for him. Donald Arthurs, a black officer from Sheffield, also in plain clothes, was sitting in the driver’s seat.

  “How did it g
o?” he asked.

  “OK,” replied Andrew, trying to appear offhand. He was suddenly aware that his heart seemed to be beating too fast and that he was sweating profusely.

  Arthurs, who was more than a little jealous that he had not been chosen for the role of ‘test purchaser’, was irritated by Andrew’s reticence. “But did you score?” he asked impatiently.

  “Yeah, I scored,” replied Andrew, gingerly pulling the small clingfilm packet from the pocket of his jeans to show Arthurs. He suddenly felt very tired. He was conscious that his performance had not been the heroic success that he had hoped it would be, and he had a vague feeling that he had betrayed someone or something – though he could not say whom or what. “We’d better get this back to the nick,” he said.

  They drove back to Brixton Police Station in silence, separated by Andrew’s experience, a loss of virginity from which Arthurs was excluded.

  Back at the police station, Andrew made his way to the room being used as the control room for Operation Fleece. Here, earlier in the day, DS Fletcher had instructed him in his duties as an ‘agent provocateur’ – what he could, and could not, do as a ‘test purchaser’ – and had issued him with sixty pounds in notes: two twenty-pound notes and two ten-pound notes, each of which had had its serial number recorded before it was handed over to him.

  Now Andrew reported to DC Jarvis, the exhibits officer.

  “Hi, Wes,” said Jarvis. “Got something for me?”

  “Yeah,” replied Andrew, holding out the wrap he had bought from Delroy and experiencing, suddenly and unexpectedly, a small thrill of pride.

  Jarvis examined it. “Yeah,” he pronounced. “That looks like the real McCoy.”

  He placed the wrap in a thick transparent cellophane bag, which he then closed with a seal bearing the unique number C8707325. Meanwhile, Andrew wrote the exhibit number W/1 on a label, which he and Jarvis signed and Andrew then attached to the cellophane bag.

  They then repeated this procedure with the twenty-pound note and ten-pound note which Andrew had brought back from his shopping expedition and which now became exhibit W/2 and were sealed into a cellophane bag bearing the seal number C8707326.

  DC Matthews arrived. “Good work, Wes,” he said.

  Andrew’s previous dealings with Matthews had given him some inkling of the other officer’s attitude to him, and he examined his face closely, but Matthews was being careful, and neither his expression nor his voice betrayed any trace of irony.

  “I’ll just run off a couple of copies of this tape,” he said, “and then I’ll give you one to watch while you’re doing your statement.”

  He disappeared into a neighbouring room and, when he returned a few minutes later, he handed Andrew a video cassette labelled BM/1B, saying, “Here you are, star.”

  Andrew looked at him intently, but failed to detect any indication of ironic intent in his face. He wondered if he was being over suspicious. “Thanks,” he murmured.

  He tried to adopt the confident tone of one police officer speaking to another, colleagues working together on the same case. “Is the dealer known to you?”

  “Yeah, his name’s Delroy Brown. We suspected he was dealing, but, up to now, we’d never caught him at it.”

  Matthews nodded at the video cassette in Andrew’s hand and asked solicitously, “Would you like me to help you operate the machine?”

  Andrew thought back to his encounter with Delroy. Watching the recording of it on his own would be embarrassing, but doing so in the company of DC Matthews would be mortifying. He suspected that Matthews knew this, but, again, when he examined the other’s face, it told him nothing.

  “No, I’ll be all right, thanks,” he replied, and waited for Matthews to leave.

  But Matthews did not seem in a hurry to go, and Andrew wondered if, sensing his discomfort, the other officer was deliberately delaying his departure.

  At the end of the room were a television set and a video recorder. Andrew went over to them and turned them on. He put the tape which Matthews had given him into the video recorder and picked up the remote control unit which operated the machine. From a table at the side of the room he picked up a blank MG11 Witness Statement form and a biro. He sat down at a desk facing the television set, put the remote control unit down on the desk and began to complete the form.

  After the words Statement of, he wrote, Wes, after the word Age, he inserted, Over 21, and after the word Occupation, he put, Police Officer. But, as he wrote the familiar last two words, they suddenly looked somehow different, even alien. Next came the printed declaration: This Statement (consisting of pages) is true to the best of my knowledge and belief and I make it knowing that, if it is tendered in evidence, I shall be liable to prosecution, if I have willfully stated in it anything which I know to be false or do not believe to be true.

  Suddenly, Andrew found himself contemplating these words in a new light. What was true and what was false? At the top of the form he had given his name as Wes but that wasn’t his real name. Was it a false name? He’d given his occupation as Police Officer, but, in the events he was about to describe in his statement, he’d been pretending not to be a police officer. Was it true then to describe his occupation, in the context of those events, as that of a police officer? He could give an accurate account of what had occurred between him and Delroy, but would that account be true? Had what he had done that afternoon been dishonest and, if it had, could what he said about it be true? He shifted uncomfortably in his chair.

  DC Matthews, tired of waiting for Andrew to start playing his tape, had left the room.

  With a conscious effort, Andrew set about writing his statement. When he came to describe his encounter with Delroy, he began playing the video tape. It took him a few minutes to find the place in the film at which he first appeared. He had never seen himself on film before and was, at first, mesmerized by what he saw. The film was in black and white – or, more accurately, and perhaps appropriately, in shades of grey. It did not last long and Andrew played it several times. The faces of those appearing in it were recognizable but not very distinct. The movement in which Delroy passed his hand across his mouth and then placed it in Andrew’s hand was a little blurred, but clear enough, and Andrew began to convince himself that he had not done so badly after all. He just wished he could see his face – and Delroy’s – a little more clearly. He wondered what Delroy was doing now – and how he would react to the film when he saw it.

  Andrew realized that DC Jarvis was watching him. He quickly returned to writing his statement. He wound the video tape back to the beginning of his encounter with Delroy, and played it again, this time stopping it every few seconds, to write a few more lines of his statement, recording, as he did so, the timings shown on the film of the events he was describing.

  When Andrew had finished his statement, he handed it and the video tape to Jarvis. He wished he could take a copy of the video back to Nottingham to show his wife and son, but, of course, that was impossible.

  He returned to Nottingham that evening by train. Before he left, he was advised by DS Fletcher not to tell anyone what he had been doing in London. “Not even your wife,” the DS told him. “Some of these dealers are very dangerous bastards, and, if you’re all that stands between them and a stretch inside, they won’t have the slightest hesitation in topping you.”

  For Andrew, this advice was doubly troubling. He had been told when he volunteered for Operation Fleece that the work could be dangerous, but it had not occurred to him that any danger it involved might follow him back to Nottingham where his wife and son were. The admonition not to tell his wife what he had been doing in London also distressed him, for, not only did he not like keeping secrets from her, but also, for him, discussing with her his work and the moral dilemmas and ethical uncertainties with which it presented him was one of the necessities of life. These were not discussions in which his wife, Ella, played a very active part, and, indeed, sometimes he wondered if she was listening to his anxious monologues at all, but, even so, telling her what was on his mind was essential to his attempts to make sense of his life and his work.