FALLEN IDOLS - Neil White

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      The Swan Inn was humming nicely nearby. The name didn’t fit. It had neither grace nor beauty, it was just somewhere for the daytime crowd of never-worked and laid-off to swap stories and hide away. The whole place smelled of old smoke and spilled ale, the varnish on the small round tables cracked like veins and covered in white rings. A large screen hung from the ceiling at one end and there was a pool table at the other.

      Two men were sitting on stools by the bar. They were just passing time, swapping tales over warm beer, watching the landlord prop up the bar in the other room, the snug, kept away from them by the wooden partition with stained-glass edges.

      One of the men was Bob Garrett, the best policeman in Turners Fold never to be promoted. Middle-aged, his back not quite as straight as maybe it once was, the hair not quite as full either and scattered with grey. But there was a sharpness about him, like he could sense what was going on around him, a stern calm, the eyes brooding and mean. His jaw was set firm, no slack-jawed gum-chew.

      He’d looked after the townspeople for twenty years, joined up after walking away from a lower-division football career to spend more time with his young wife and even younger son. He made new drinkers twitchy, drinking on the way home in his black trousers and white shirt, the creases and stiff collar marking him out, but when he was off-duty he was done with judging.

      He looked up when he heard a shout.

      ‘What is it?’ he asked.

      It was the landlord.

      ‘Somebody’s shot Dumas! Look, look! Henri Dumas, he’s fucking dead.’

      ‘What are you talking about?’

      The landlord pointed excitedly at the television, permanently tuned to a sports channel, his stomach quivering with excitement, the sign of too long in the job. The drinkers in the bar shuffled towards the screen, the intermittent barks of conversation hushed into silence.

      ‘Look at the news. Someone’s shot Dumas.’

      ‘What? Henri Dumas?’ asked an old man, looking up from his copy of the Valley Post.

      ‘Is there another? Someone has killed him.’ The landlord reached for the remote to turn up the volume and then grabbed a glass without looking to pour himself a beer, the bitter all tumbling froth.

      There was the sound of glasses being put down and then a respectful silence as the latest news from London echoed around the bar. Bob Garrett stared in disbelief.

      The landlord walked away, his beer settling in the glass, shouting his opinion as he went. Foreign players. Bring nothing but trouble. Someone shouted that maybe he took a dive. The bulletin soon gave way for a Gillette commercial and everyone drifted back to their space. Bob Garrett watched them all go and then turned back to the television, wondering what sort of world lets people shrug off someone being killed in cold blood.

      It didn’t take him long to realise that he didn’t have the answer, so he turned back to his drink. He looked around as he lifted the glass. The news had been a break in the day, nothing more.

       THREE

      It was quiet when Laura McGanity walked towards the corner of Old Compton Street and Greek Street. She could see the small huddle of people around a cafe table: a police photographer, the owner, a mini-flock of detectives, all looking at the floor. They were all grim-faced and quiet, and she knew what they were thinking: that they had met their idol, close enough to touch, but that it wasn’t supposed to happen like this, stood in a flak jacket and protective helmet in a stone-cold empty street, blood at their feet.

      There were a few detectives walking with her, the extra hands drafted in to help out. Laura was moving slowly, looking around her, trying to get a feel for where the shots might have come from.

      ‘What do you think? Evidence collection or a vigil?’

      Laura looked towards the voice. It was a young officer she had never met. She looked back to the scene ahead. She could see the photographer getting busy around the bloodstains, a compass on the floor, with a ruler setting the scene for scale. The long-range shots had already been taken, the tourist snaps, a collection of views along a trendy London street. Now he was down to the money shots, the stained pavement under a green awning.

      ‘I don’t know,’ she replied. ‘Both, I suppose.’

      They ducked under the crime-scene tape. The detectives exchanged smiles and nods, businesslike.

      ‘Detective Constable McGanity. Glad you could join us.’ It was one of the detectives, a young star on the rise. He glanced at his inspector as he spoke, looking for points.

      Laura smiled. It wasn’t how she felt, but the only defence she had was to look unbeaten. She knew what the other detectives thought of her. Token woman. Keep the politicos happy. A drain. Too wrapped up in childcare to do her job properly.

      ‘Sorry, John, but I got held up finishing the jobs you couldn’t manage.’

      ‘Not today.’ It was her inspector, Tom Clemens, a grizzly detective, known for his growls. He said it quietly, but everyone around him knew that he meant it. He was getting older, his stomach growing over his waistband, and what hair he had left was now grey and whisker-short. But every young detective wanted to end up like him.

      Laura pulled at her shirt collar, throwing a warm breeze down the front of her flak jacket. Hot days in London just hang there, the heat swirled by traffic, disappearing only at night. She always thought that body armour must have been tested in December, because it wasn’t made for days like this one.

      She kept looking down as the detectives were briefed, and then they set off in their pairs, intent and thoughtful, leaving her behind.

      She looked up when her inspector addressed her.

      ‘What are they saying on the news?’ he asked.

      Laura shook her head. ‘I don’t know. We’ve maybe got a few hours of shock before we get grilled.’ She looked around. ‘So what have we got?’

      ‘Not much,’ he answered. ‘We’re going door-to-door, trying to find where the shots came from. But it’s a slow job. If the shooter is still out there, he’s going to be waiting a long time for the knock on the door.’

      ‘He’s gone,’ said Laura simply. ‘Joined the crowds, headed back into town.’

      ‘I know that, but I’m not going to risk being wrong.’ Tom looked down at the bloodstains, shaking his head. ‘I don’t know what Dumas did to deserve this, but he’s upset someone.’

      ‘Where do you think the shots came from?’

      He nodded away from the Cafe Boheme, towards Charing Cross Road, past the bars and cafes, Ed’s Diner, neon Americana squeezed into a corner plot. ‘The guess is somewhere over there. The people sitting outside looked instinctively one way when they heard the first shot.’ He looked back down at the floor. ‘It gets him in the right side of his chest as he’s standing. When he took the second shot, the one to the head, he had spun around, clenched up, looking into the cafe. His head snapped backwards like he’d taken the blow from the front, from inside the cafe. The people nearest to him ducked and looked that way, and that’s when the scramble around the tables started. But I think that was just instinct, going from what they saw, and no one has reported seeing the gunman in the cafe. If he’d been nearby, somebody would have seen him, without any doubt.’

      ‘No grassy knoll.’

      He nodded. ‘One gun, two shots.’

      Laura smiled. She guessed there’d be a conspiracy website online within twenty-four hours, but Laura was aware that a bullet does strange things to a head. The bullet pushes the blood out, so it can force the blood and brains out of the exit wound like a jet spray. And Laura knew that a pressure hose kicked backwards, not forwards.

      Tom raised

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