Black Mask 2019 Yearbook

LLC.

Behind The Mask

It’s true—this issue is a bit delayed. But now that it’s out and you see it’s double-sized, with more stories than ever, we hope you’ll find it well worth the wait.

This time around, we’re including nine new stories in the Black Mask vein by Brian Townsley, Jane Jakeman, Brian Stanley, Hannah Honeybun, William Burton McCormick, Frank Megna, Jonathan Sheppard, Michael Bracken, Jim Doherty, as well as a new article on Raymond Chandler’s The Little Sister by Katrina Younes.

We’re appreciative of "Friend of Black Mask" Boris Dralyuk, who kindly supplied his translation of Isaac Babel’s Lyubka the Cossack and arranged for its reprinting here. Black Mask readers are highly encouraged to pick up the recent Babel collection published by Pushkin Press, Odessa Stories.

And, as with previous issues, we’ve collected some of the best hard-boiled detective fiction from the Popular Publications vaults, as written by some of the genre’s best: Dashiell Hammett, D.L. Champion, Carroll John Daly, Frederick Nebel, T.T. Flynn, and Frederick C. Davis.

Prize Fight

by Brian Townsley

Sonny tried desperately to focus on the passing landscape from the backseat of the cab in which he found himself. At least it was a cab, he reasoned. Of the three kinds of cars in which one suddenly finds himself in the backseat, the cab is clearly the best of the lot. There was no iron grate, no siren, and no goons on either side of him, so that was something.

He remembered sitting at the bar of the hotel where he was staying. He remembered the job going to shit. He remembered that it was 1951, already. He remembered his nine months of sobriety, before tonight. He remembered ordering rye with a beer back. More than once, he remembered that. There may have been more. Many more, even. Who knew? What he knew now, however, was that the Cathedral City nightlife was passing him quickly enough that he could hardly focus. He knocked on the window as a means of getting the driver’s attention. He wanted out—needed out, in fact. He rapped his knuckles on the window and said what he was pretty sure was ‘stop here.’ The particulars were fuzzy, and his voice was difficult to discern, even to him, but he got his point across. The driver, a French gentleman who sang and hummed in his home language as he drove, stopped the vehicle and looked back at his sole customer, concern etched on the not inconsiderable features on his face. Sonny thought the concern ridiculous, of course, and asked ‘how much’ that sounded a bit more like ‘dowmusssh’ than he intended, but details were really not the point here. He tossed the bills at the man and exited the cab and found the level concrete a challenge.

Upon sitting on the curb, his reason for desiring fresh air was revealed as he projectile vomited heavily between his brogues in the gutter. It was mostly pink and thick and voluminous, filled with rye and chunks of bread and cheese snacks from the bar and it was hot and shot onto the concrete with verve. He heard women gasp behind him on the sidewalk and young men laugh out loud and without looking he knew other men were guarding the frail eyes of their dates as they passed. He laughed at this, which evolved into a cough and when he did this his head bobbed slightly as if a puppet, his pomaded hair nodding towards the pavement. He said something to them, these passing model civilians, but it was without handle and sounded a bit like a slurred blashphemy. But man, did he feel better. He reached into his pocket and removed his handkerchief and wiped clean his mouth and then the wingtips he had sullied with the contents of his stomach, which lay now steaming and given character on the pavement. He tossed the white cotton square into the gutter. No use in keeping that, he knew even without the gift of sobriety. His fumbled awkwardly at a pack of cigarettes until a single soldier was unearthed, at which point he stuck it in his mouth, unlit, and took in the evening.

He knew without looking at the signage that he was in the part of town in which he could not swing a dead cat without hitting a whorehouse or nightclub or saloon that did not have roots, or books, with the mob. The job may have fallen apart, but the night was still young. He spit once then, a thick gob that turned over upon itself and raised majestically above the street before catching the window of a passing car and was ferried away into the night. He stood, removed the fedora from his head and raked his slicked black hair with his fingers before rehatting, took note of his increased balance and the possibilities therein, and peered skyward at the bowl of stars presented. Then he lit his cigarette, inhaled deeply, and exhaled the remains into the desert night. A beginning, again.

Cathedral City is so named because of the southern canyon which rims its borders and reminded travelers long before of a cathedral; the fact that the city was now well known for those actions one would not partake of in a cathedral was, of course, a paradox that the honorable founder Colonel Henry Washington could not have foreseen. For while the neighboring city of Palm Springs held the sobriquet of being the vacation home for the rich and beautiful on location from Hollywood, Cathedral City was surely the slutty younger sister, bereft of elegance, manners, and the money that often accompanies such things, but no less full of the lascivious desires therein. In short, Cat City was the place to go after dark. The mob had its hands in prostitution and nightclubs, after hours gambling and the habits that went with it.

Unlike the city which housed it, The Hotsy Totsy Club was appropriately titled. As Sonny took his bearings, the neon sign, which formed an X on the repeated O in the words, called to him like a lighthouse to the wayward stranger adrift. He checked for the brass knuckles in his jacket pocket and felt the weight of them before his hand had even found purchase. By the same measure, he knew without checking his shoulder holster that he had left the .45 in his room before he had gone down to the bar. Which had apparently led to too much rye, which had somehow led to him hailing a cab, which had led to his date with the curb, which led directly to the Hotsy Totsy. Quite the straight line, if you thought about it. So he was without his piece tonight. No better reason to avoid the need for one, he reasoned optimistically. Feeling an idiot nonetheless.

What he knew about the Hotsy Totsy was this: there was plenty to drink and eat, women of domestic repute if one was so obliged, card games on certain nights, numbers games most nights, and dog fights on a given night. Problem was, he couldn’t quite remember what night it was at present, and reconciling that knowledge with the given night for said entertainment was downright hopeless.

The joint was set up thusly—it was a two-story establishment, the lower of which was mainly for drinking and the mentioned card game at the back on said given nights. He, however, did not have Katie with him and certainly would have to cheat at solitaire to pull anything nearing a victory from the 52 this fine evening. The upstairs was generally where guests frequented in couples. Even this thought briefly reminded Sonny of his deceased wife and with it brought no desire for cheap Cathedral City whores. Or even the moderately-priced ones. The back, which, truth be told, only the invited were able to frequent, featured other forms of entertainment. He sat at the bar with a crash and raised his finger while ashing his cigarette with his other hand. He had to really focus on this daring show of double-handed dexterity, and realized that was probably the extent of his coordination at present.

He looked around briefly, which he knew any good detective should do to ‘take in the scene,’ he had read Chandler and Hammett and Doyle and was aware of the fact that he should be able to discern slight mannerisms and throw barbs upon those who would engage him, but he found his vision blurry and even his thoughts still slightly slurred. There were, he noticed, many people here tonight. Most moving more quickly than he. So, no Sherlock tonight. More along the lines of a violent W. C. Fields, perhaps. He looked for the bathroom, primarily because of the rather morbid reality that he kept killing men in that particular room. The benefit was that there was indeed a sink to wash after said episodes, not that he had taken advantage of that particular, but it would certainly be a benefit at some point. The negatives, well, there were really almost too many to count if he were to be honest. Regardless, he couldn’t find the thing, so it followed that perhaps everyone in here was safe tonight.

The bartender appeared before him, placed both hands on the bar, and smiled the smile of a man not really smiling.

I’ll have a beer and a shot of rye, Sonny approximated.

The barman nodded, then flicked his forefinger at his own chin. As if to send a message. Sonny immediately believed that he was referring to one of his many tattoos, not that he had one on his chin, but the teardrop at the eye or perhaps the inkwork blasted about his hands as he smoked.

Sonny saw the gesture and stared back at the man.

The barman said, You’ve got pieces of vomit on your chin, sir. This is a respectable establishment. Please… and he trailed off, as if the words were in hiding.

"Fuck. Seriously? Hand me your fucking towel, Sonny said, and, when the man did not move, Sonny leaned forward and grabbed the towel on the barman’s shoulder and brought it to his own mouth and chin and wiped vigorously. Sonny’s eyes never left the other man’s. When he had finished, he put the towel into the back pocket of his own trousers and said, As for this being a respectable establishment, if it was, I wouldn’t be here. He winked. It took some motor control, but he believed that he may have pulled it off. Now, be a good little boy. Get me a beer and a shot."

The man turned reluctantly, as if thinking that perhaps he had a choice in the matter, and returned soonafter with the order. Sonny drank from the beer thirstily. He took the room in again. The lights were red and yellow and there were lots of them and most of the people seemed to be couples. He saw two obvious greaseballs, outside of the random spaghettihead out on a date, the first a short one at the end of the bar with his hands folded over his nuts, an old tough guy pose, probably the bar manager, and a much larger one standing near an emergency exit. Because those need guarding.

Sonny sipped his beer, then shot the chaser, and the night got longer.

Things had been going well earlier in the day. Sonny was still sober and following his mark around Palm Springs as if they were both on a date. Which, in retrospect, perhaps the mark may have enjoyed. The man was a young actor making his way about town, minding the Hollywood 90-mile rule and partying with the entertainment set at the pools and resorts. Sonny had been following him for two days for a director to whom the young man owed a not insignificant amount of money. Was Sonny proud of the work? He would have preferred multiple root canals without the aid of anesthesia. But the director was a friend he had helped out in the past, and this was cake work. This wasn’t exactly dealing with goons or wiseguys or erasers. The guy was an actor, for chrissakes. Little girls are more dangerous. But then his mark had gotten into a tiff, no other word for it considering, with another actor at a pool party who just happened to be the squeeze for Rock Hudson, who, while not at all gay, was clearly concerned for his friend. Said friend had been pushed into the pool, no major crime there, but had hit his head on the concrete during the fall and cleared out the pool (of which a number of the Hollywood elite and near elite and not elite found themselves) as he bled. And bled more. He was going to be fine, to the happiness of Mr. Hudson, but the man Sonny was following, a young mister Charley Hutton, was currently in a Palm Springs cell, with nobody to bail him out and nobody waiting for him when he was to be arraigned for assault. Therefore, the job had gone to shit, and Sonny called Saul Bernstein to tell him the news. Then he checked up on Katie, seeing that she was fine. She was. She was playing a house game of poker. And having dinner with a young man Sonny needed to meet, and let the young man know that there were rules involved, here. He needed to do that. But, she was fine, as fine goes.

And then, for whatever reason, Sonny went down to the bar without his piece, and started drinking after nine months. Again. There was no analysis needed, of course—there were battles, and sometimes you lost. And here he was, at the Hotsy Totsy, with not enough middle fingers to raise at the world. There never are.

Sonny’s way of dealing with a closed door was generally to knock it over and with a closed window it was generally to break it, but instead he passed the large Italian man at the door a $50. Each party involved was as surprised as the next and so rather than requiring his brass knuckles, which sat at the ready, he slipped them from his fingers and found himself in the rear of the establishment, outdoors, near a manicured garden (a strange accessory, he realized even in his current state), and following a cement path. There were flowers and bushes of which he had no idea the name but it was clear someone had spent significant care on the area. There was, at one point, a man in a suit urinating on a large bush, but that did not seem irregular. The man even looked at Sonny and smirked, as if they shared a joke.

They walked further. It may have been the beer, or it may have been simply the distance, but the night had elongated with the walk. Then, without introduction, came a guttural hymn of the crowd, and a brief whine of the participants. Sonny, despite his state, recognized the evening for what it was. Dog Fight night. Now, he was not a fan of these events, but he had seen plenty of them in his time in Mexico, years before. They were mostly grisly and predictable affairs where men placed their dogs where they wished their dicks to be, and, paradoxically, generally the shorter, stouter dog came out on top. Many of these were pit bulls, or, as the Mexicans referred to them ‘chamuco’s,’ who were bred for fighting their own. Unlike a terrier bred to hunt rats on ships or multiple breeds bred to herd sheep or cows or lions, these were dogs meant to fight other dogs. Which, in Sonny’s condition, seemed both alien and, somehow, to make perfect sense.

The din became louder as he came upon the small amphitheater and two dogs were at work below. There were men of every race and color standing on the benches looking down upon the fenced pit, and the trainers of the dogs stood just outside. The descending standing levels allowed the fans access to the fights with clear viewpoints. Two bulls were in the ring at present, though it was clear to Sonny from the first view that the fight was done. He wished for an official, somebody to waive the fight off. The mostly white bull had the face and jaw of the brindle-colored bull firmly attached and the rear legs of the prey already on the floor. Two puddles of blood, nearly joining, lay beneath. It was a sad sight. Sonny didn’t understand why the losing prizefighter of the dog match faced death while the human boxers went home to their wives and kids. It’s all fighting. Live, or die.

As he was drunk and fixated on the bull fight in the ring, Sonny failed to see the two wop’s until they lifted him by the armpits and carried him up the stairs of the amphitheater. It would be kind to say that there was something noble in it, but there really wasn’t. They carried him as he impotently wacked his forearms about until they reached a plot of grass near the garden and dropped him. He got to his knees. Each of the meatballs stood next to him as he took it all in. He recognized the man in front of him then: Sally Campinella. He was still short, still ugly, Sonny noted. He was in a suit with a red flower at the top pocket. He couldn’t remember what that was called. Sally said: You can’t just come down here, you motherfucker. What the fuck you think you’re doing? Take in the sights? Some of the guys in LA still make you for the Big Vinnie hit!? And you’re just gonna walk in here, like a swinging dick, and take in a dog fight?

That was a lot of questions, right there, Sonny thought.

Campinella paused then, ran his thumb across his lips. Then he said, If I had one iota, you tattooed freak: I’d plug your ass right here. Drunk, like you should be. I can smell you from here. He shrugged. But I’m a nice guy. The old days is the old days. He smiled at Sonny, with teeth too large for his face. Then he hit him once, twice about the head, and Sonny felt his right ear bleed as the warmth of it ran down his neck. Then Sally turned, quickly, back towards the fights, and said, as he walked away: do your shit. Now, Sonny had been drunk, as anybody near him would attest; and he had been distracted, as he had been carried off like a misfit child; but this newest insult, as if middle fingers had not been invented, woke him anew. One of the lugs stepped on his ankle and twisted his boot on it with his full weight. Sonny grunted and put his left hand out to the two lugs as if asking for time, just another second, while he reached for the brass knuckles in his coat pocket with his right hand and affixed them. He sprang upon the men then from his knees, breaking the tibia of the first man immediately (upon which he would never walk with a normal step again), and collapsing the face on the left side of the second as he sprung upward and towards him. It was a brutal three seconds. The first man, his leg bent slightly at an angle wholly unnatural, began sobbing quietly. The second man twitched slightly, face down. Sonny limped towards the small amphitheater again, feeling much less drunk, now. His ankle throbbed and he could already feel the swelling and his heartbeat down there.

There were two dogs beginning another dance anew: this time an undersized bull and a German shepherd, not a pup but barely into manhood. They barked, snapped, and growled at each other as they were held back. Sonny spotted Sally Campinella at about 0300. Sally was not looking at him, as the frenzy towards the alpha spectacle drew him as well. Sonny started walking that way upon the top row as the fight began. Both dogs were game, but it was clear within 30 seconds that the bull was taking the fight from the shepherd as he latched upon the neck and blood dripped, then ran onto the dirt below. The shepherd, however, was a savage as well. Despite realizing the game was up, he gripped the ear of the bull with his long snout, pulling blood, bossing the ring as he could. Sonny continued around the uppermost row, then descended the benches gingerly with his gimpy ankle until he stood directly behind Sally C. Sally was enraptured with the fight, and he put his own hand up as if to protect him from the bull; Sonny grabbed his greasy, pomaded hair by the top of the head and pulled him backward and pummeled him once, twice in the face; he felt teeth and bone give; no words were needed. He drew his hand back again and looked at the fractured visage below. Some partial person, now. The brass knuckles were slicked crimson and Sonny wiped those on the man’s shirt collar. Then he stepped downward in the rows amid the crowd and climbed the fence into the ring. He kicked the bull with his right foot twice and when it did not give he punched it brutally in the ribs with his brass knuckles. The blow emitted an immediate howl and the bull released and retreated. The crowd had quieted, unsure of how to react. Sonny picked the bloodied shepherd up and put it over his two shoulders and walked through the fence from which both trainer and dog entered. Neither man approached him.

It was a strange sight, this thick and bloodied man limping about the streets with a bloodier dog about his shoulders. The dog was licking the man’s right ear and it made his fedora lean forward to the left, hanging about his head by gravity and angle alone. The man held his left hand out as if to hitch a ride, as if those about were so foolish as to take such a pair.

A cab did stop, however. It was the same French driver from before, Sonny realized, and of course it was. If he could handle Sonny nearly puking in his cab and now carried a dying dog on his shoulders it must indeed be a part of some larger mythic quest which, truth be told, may not have been the case. But fault the cabdriver none for the thought. Sonny leaned down into the backseat and (very awkwardly) placed the wounded dog on the red plastic bench seat and said ‘animal hospital’ in a much more sober manner than before and watched the night pass as the cab drove west.

Sonny had fallen asleep in a plastic chair in the lobby of the hospital as the medical personnel did what they could do for the wounded shepherd. He woke to a man in a lab coat standing above him. He had no idea the time. He grunted a sort of greeting and snorted and removed his hat. He cupped his eyes in his palms and raked his hands through his hair and looked back up again. The man in the lab coat was still there.

Sir? Sorry to wake you… but I have news on the dog that you brought in, the man said.

Yeah. Okay. Right, dog.

The animal sustained a good deal of blood loss and some significant puncture wounds, but will otherwise be fine. You got him here in time. The man paused, and, seeing that Sonny was not responding, added: He’s shaved in some areas and bandaged in others, but… he’ll be okay.

Sonny smiled at that. A grin nearing a grimace that made his face ache anew from the pounding he had taken earlier in the evening. He was sure, now that he thought of it, that he still had the caked blood on his face and neck. The man in the lab coat sat down in a plastic chair across from him and looked severe. Or whatever other expression passed for serious. He half-grinned, and began: Sir, you look as if maybe you need some care as well. And… he paused here, clearly searching for words he was uncomfortable finding, "well… about your dog. How did the animal get those type of wounds?" Sonny was tired and his head was aching and ringing and he felt as if he might come out on the right side of tonight regardless of the sobriety slip and it suddenly sprang to mind that honesty sometimes is the best policy. Sometimes.

He looked down at the fedora on the chair next to him and rubbed his stubbled cheek and flakes of dried blood fell to the floor. He nodded to the man, fumbled for a cigarette and lit it. Inhaled, exhaled towards the neon above. Okay, he said.

So here’s the thing: I don’t know this dog from Adam. He’s a shepherd, I liked his spirit. He was going down, he knew it. But that fucker, he accentuated this by pointing with his cigarette towards where he imagined the dog to be, in the innards of the animal ER, well, he just wouldn’t give an inch. Here’s the thing, doc. Are you a doc?

The man nodded, once. He was young with curly hair and round spectacles and sat attendant. Sonny dragged the smoke, and continued: I was at a dog fight tonight, and took a bit of a beating myself. Drunk myself into a stupor first. And this Dago goes by the name of Sally Campinella slaps me up a bit with his muscle and claims I had something to do with a murder of this shitbag Vinnie in LA, who was close with Mickey Cohen, and so he figures I deserve what I got coming. It’s all shit. I kill people with some regularity these days, doc. He said this last bit with a clarity that surprised even him. As if he had confused the early morning lobby of an animal hospital for the confessional. But dogs, now… he continued, dogs, well, they ain’t got a choice. That’s bullshit in my book. He dragged his smoke, exhaled. And it’s only my book we’re talking here, right, compadre? The doctor looked at Sonny as if there was a script for the scene and he had not been given it. He was surprised and embarrassed and interested all at once.

I’m glad the dog is gonna make it. He’ll come home with me. My daughter will like that. He smiled briefly at the thought. As for me? Nothing that some iodine and an ankle brace won’t cure. He looked the doc in the eyes then, and dragged his cigarette.

Well, the doctor said, I… uh, I’m glad that you brought the animal in when you did. The events that you describe make it difficult to quite understand… but, he couldn’t have sustained that blood loss for much longer. He began to reach for Sonny’s knee for sincerity, then thought better of it and rested it on his own, and continued: This was a good thing you did. I… don’t understand the rest of what you spoke of, but this was good.

Sonny smirked around the cigarette between his lips. Yeah, maybe you should stick to animals, doc, he said, and stood, his ankle flaring immediately upon taking weight. He stretched his arms and shoulders, and looked down at the man still seated. Hey, by the by, you wouldn’t happen to have any leashes, would you?

The hospital ended up only being a few blocks from Sonny’s hotel so he decided to walk the way home. What better way to get used to one another, he reasoned. He spoke to the dog the whole way home, telling the shepherd about his resolve in the ring and of Katie who would be another part of the new family and of his drinking slip which he hoped to keep between the two of them. Regret is best held for the loser, or the fallen, and thus each of them stumbled home in his way, leashed and limping, unable at times to tell one from another, but entirely together, a union at once primal and whole.

In Custody

by Jane Jakeman

Got room for this one?

Get him away from my desk, Gregg! Christ, he’s dripping everywhere! As if the rain’s not enough—coming through the roof in this rotten old place.

We’ll be out of it in a week anyway. Due for demolition, minimum staffing, sell the site—story of local policing in our time, Sarge. Right you, get your nose off the sergeant’s nice clean desk, you dirty young Mick.

DC Gregg pushed his prisoner away from the surface of the custody desk, smeared by snot and blood.

Rainwater continued to drip from the stained ceiling. The boy opened his eyes and struggled.

God’s sake, I can’t breathe! His voice was faint, squeaking like a hog-tied animal. His feathery red hair was darkened by liquids.

He’s going! Hold him up and get him out of my way!

A fleshy hand grasped the collar of the boy’s stained denim jacket.

Don’t worry about it lad, you’re going to get special attention.

DC Gregg was strong enough to haul the boy upright with one arm. The collar of his grey-white nylon shirt had been torn open and a gold cross dangled from a thin chain. Gregg pulled at it and then let it swing back.

Didn’t I bloody know it! He’s Holy Catholic Roller! Send for the chaplain! Want the last rites, do you, son?

He turned towards the cells, pulling the boy around. Which box you got reserved tonight, Sarge?

Willis looked up at the bank of screens and muttered as if reluctantly, The regular. Number five. But this is the last time, I told you before—I’ll not risk it again. That spying bitch is in charge up at HQ—keep the bloody skirts out, I say. What did the kid do, anyway? What’s the charge?

Gregg dragged the boy towards the cells. Christ, he’s passed out. I’ve got a dead weight here. Sacks of potatoes, them sodding Irish. The charge? Resisting arrest, assaulting a police officer… you know the routine. Regular stuff. You bloody owe me, Willis.

Willis muttered under his breath. That’s paid off.

What did you say? Leah still at Uni, isn’t she? Could be locked up in a cell right now, that daughter of yours. Good job it was me got hold of her. And the white stuff. Give us a couple of ,imutes here, will you?

He kicked open the door of cell five. Within, a low-watt yellow bulb illuminated a narrow metal bed, high walls, a tiny window-grating. Very little had been changed at this station since the nineteenth-century, except for the CCTV technology around the custody desk.

Willis was smarting at Gregg’s words and his fist curled up in impotent rage, but he controlled himself as he called out, This boy here. Name?

Gregg fumbled with one hand in the boy’s jacket pocket, produced a cheap plastic card holder and threw it towards the desk.

Willis picked it up and took out a credit card with a curly glittery logo on it. Mr. Cashel Riley said the name across the front.

Have to enter you in the charge book, Mr. Cashel Riley, he said and looked at the bank of screens again as the cell door slammed shut.

One screen was blank.

The coroner droned on. The forensic evidence showed that the decesed had suffered multiple injuries. If I may sum up your evidence, Dr. Alexander—

He turned to the pathologist, who made a little bow of assent. Of course, Mr. Compton.

"Good, now, Dr. Alexander has testified that there were two severe blows to the skull, one in the front to the face, one at the crown of the skull. The implement with which these were delivered cannot be determined, but that to the face could have been made by a blow from a fist. That blow would have caused difficulty in breathing, impacting on the nose and mouth. If the deceased had received attention, however, that and the impact to the head would not in themselves have been the cause of death. But there were also a number—Dr. Alexander says at least five—crushing impacts to the ribs, resulting in a fractured bone penetrating the right lung.

How did the deceased come by these injuries? That we cannot answer with the slender evidence before us. Sergeant Willis has testified, and we have seen from the evidence of the CCTV record of the custody desk camera, that the deceased had what appeared to be a minor facial injuriy when he was brought to Hall Lane station at three-thirty a.m., according to the station records. DC Gregg, the arresting officer, assisted him into a cell. He was not thought sufficiently injured to warrant medical attention. However, at five a.m., he was discovered on the floor of the cell, having died of suffocation. Is that correct, Dr. Alexander?

Yes. He was found lying face-down in the cell and had suffocated in his own blood as a result of massive haemorrhaging from the pierced lung.

And unfortunately there is no evidence of his final hours, as the camera placed to cover cell five was not operating, as DI Cumberland from the technical team has testified. Sergeant Willis has given evidence that a technological failure had occurred at Hall Lane. So we must assume that the deceased’s injuries were far more serious than the two policemen concerned believed them to be, and that belief, sadly, meant they did not summon medical attention. I understand that Hall Lane police station is shortly to be closed as an economy measure and its equipment has not received the usual checks, so that failures in the electronic surveillance systems may have gone unnoticed.

Gregg was clearing out his desk at Hall Lane, carrier bags piling up next to the door. Here, Willis, got another bin there? I’ve filled two up already. The junk, you wouldn’t believe it, over the years. His voice echoed around the almost-empty station. You going to lock up here for the last time, then?

Behind the custody desk, Willis looked around at the peeling walls, the filthy cell-doors hanging open to reveal expanses of cracked white Victorian tiling within. The monitor screens of the CCTV cameras stared whitely out at the two policemen showing the unoccupied interiors.

The ’tec blokes are coming tomorrow to take out the monitors, said Willis. They’ll be the last things to go. But for me, tonight’s the end of it and I’ll be bloody glad to see the back of this place. Mind you, we’re fucking lucky not to be locked up ourselves. You went too bloody far that last time, but the coroner didn’t even refer the case.

Old Compton is a bit soft in the head, I reckon, but he’s always on the side of us boys in blue, I’ll say that for him. Hates the micks, too. All bloody bombers, he says.

He stopped and stared round. Lighting seems to be flickering.

Yeah, cables are dodgy. Sooner we go, the better. Gives me the creeps here, sometimes. They was hanging killers when this place was built.

Don’t be so bloody sensitive. They had it coming to them in those days, I ’spect.

Willis came round the desk and stood beside Gregg. Yeah. Must be the draught making the lights swing.

Shadows continued to move around them, but suddenly a fuzzy white light began to flash in the bank of monitors.

Jesus, gave me a start! said Willis.

Which one’s that?

Willis said slowly, That’s the monitor for cell five. I had it out when….

The other screens were black, but one of them was now flickering and alive. Gregg raised his head to see the door of cell five swinging shut. There was silence for a minute. The two men stared at the expanse of scurfy metal.

A series of clicks came from the bank of monitors and lettering in red appeared on one. CELL FIVE HALL LANE 04/10/75 03.40 RECORDING

The image became steady, shapes forming in black,white and grey, and now there were recognisable bodies outlined in a soft silver. One of them was hauled through the door of the cell, the head turning briefly towards the camera, and then was rwisted and flung towards the opposite wall. An arm appeared behind him and thrust out a hand outlined in muzzy platinum.

Christ almighty, turn the damned thing off!

Willis tore at leads around the bank of monitors, but the remorseless flickering on the screen continued. The first man, a thin youth, had slumped to the floor.

The second figure stepped forward, raised a boot and delivered a massive kick into the side of the prone boy. And again. Willis cried out involuntarily, Stop, for God’s sake, stop!

But the kicking went on.

Finally, the second figure turned round. As he left the cell, the camera caught a full-face shot.

Jesus, what’s that camera doing? You must have had it running when I….

No way. There was no camera in cell five. You know that was our arrangement. I stuck to it.

Then what….

I don’t know. I don’t bloody know what this is. But there’s a date on the screen—the date you brought Cashel Riley in. And he’s perfectly recognisable there.

And so am I! This must be a recording—you’ll have to destroy it.

Willis whispered, But how the hell was it recording?

Gregg looked past the monitor to the door of cell five, which was swinging open to reveal only a dirty tiled emptiness.

The screen had gone blank.

All I could do was to tke the camera away and put it back after I—after I cleaned up, muttered Willis. If it’s a recording, I can’t destroy it. I can’t even play it back. There’s no access from here, that’s how they set it up. He thrust his face close to Gregg, as if trying to get something across to him.

Everything goes straight online to Central. They run a tight unit down there. That’s what the manual says, ‘Facilities for playing back recorded images are housed in a separate area and operated only by trained staff.’ I know the bloody stuff by heart!

For Christ’s sake, can’t you get them to do something?

No chance. They’ve got that new DI in charge of surveillance. She’s a real ballcrusher. Willis turned back and waved an arm at the bank of monitors. Looks like those damned things got more conscience than you, you twisted buggar.

Gregg had slumped down on his desk, turning as far away from the screen as he could, even though it was now blank. He said to Willis, almost spitting it out, You’ve fucked me, then.

No! said Willis angrily. No! Don’t try to stick it on me. Why the hell did you do it?

Gregg looked up and his heavy face weas distorted with anger as he said, He was another of those Paddy shits. I can pick them out just walking down the street, even here in Gravesend. Just speak to them, like, hear the accent, get thinking of what happened—

Willis yelled, I don’t want to hear that again! There’s more to it than the story of your old grandad with his brains bashed out in Derry by the ruddy Black and Tans! I’ve heard it a hundred times. There’s more to it than that, isn’t there? You like doing it. You disgust me. I’ve had enough. I’ll have to do the best I can for Leah, but I’m not scared of you any more.

He came closer to Gregg and leaned down, shouting at him. It’s something in you makes you do it. That’s the truth, isn’t it? I know it.

Gregg peered up at him and said very softly, Know it? How the hell do you know it?

There was a pause. Then Willis said, I saw it just now You loved it. I bet you had a stiff on, didn’t you?

Gregg’s hands were shaking on the desk. You couldn’t have seen a thing.

Willis whispered, Oh, yes, you enjoyed it. You must have enjoyed it every time. I saw it all right. In your face. Your smiling face. On that screen, large as life.

Then the door started to open again and this time there was a phosphorescence illuminating the narrow space.

Christ, screamed Gregg. It can’t be real! There’s nothing in there! He leapt up, shaking, and rushed into cell five.

Willis hurtled himself against the door, which slammed shut. Gregg yelled out, but as he banged against the steel sheeting he heard the scraping of the key turning in the lock.

Part of Willis’ face, distorted by fear and anger, appeared through the hatch in the door. You’ve been on my back all these years and this thing has got the evidence to send you down for a bloody long time—and I’m not going with you!

The monitor for cell five came on again and showed Gregg helplessly banging his fists and then desperately butting his head against the unyielding door.

Laura Cumberland charged up the steps of Hall Lane, her blonde hair gleaming. Now’s our chance, she shouted at the team following her. We’ll have the place to ourselves. I’ve been waiting for this one. It’s going to be difficult, we won’t be able to keep it in the force eventually. But that’s no reason to stop.

She reached the custody desk. There’s always been a question over this station. Too many arrests without follow-up or charge, too many camera failures.

She looked up and stopped short.

God almighty, what’s going on? Her voice had fallen almost to a whisper.

One of the monitors over the desk was operating. It showed the interior of a cell with an upturned bed standing on end and a figure hanging from twisted cloth tied to the bars of the tiny window high up in the wall.

The screen continued faithfully recording. CELL FIVE HALL LANE 06/10/75 09.40.

Cumberland pushed open the door and