The Hammer
By
Roger Busby
Published by
The Hammer
Copyright 2012 by Roger Busby
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy; recording, or any information storage and retrieval system now know or to be invented, without the permission in writing for the publisher, except by a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review written for inclusion in a magazine, newspaper, or broadcast.
For Maureen with love
Table of Contents
Prologue
The Hammer
Biography
Other Titles
Prologue:
The new Borough Commander had a hard-man reputation to live up to and he didn’t care who got hurt in the process. So when he planned to hit a crime ridden South London estate with Operation Iron Fist, it was up to a pair of ex Royal Marines to do something fast or the summer riots would seem like a picnic, the Met would take casualties…and someone was going to get killed.
The Hammer
Sooner or later The Hammer was going to get someone killed. Who said so? Pretty well every uniform in The Borough from the PCSOs and hobby bobbies to the response car jockeys and unit beat PCs all the way up to “Jacko” Jackson who ran the reliefs.
“We’ve got to do something about this clown before it’s too late,” Doyle voiced the lament which crackled around the factory like wild fire, “last night we only just got out of the farm by the skin of our teeth.”
“By clown,” Jackson said, “I presume you are referring to our esteemed leader, Commander Robert Douglas McGee, scourge of The Gorbals.”
“None other,” Doyle said, “And that’s another thing, I don’t understand why we got saddled with a Strathclyde nutter. I was talking to our friends up there on the Zatopec team and they said they were glad to see the back of him.”
“Ah, that’s why you’re still a DS rooting around in the weeds,” Jackson said, smiling, “Met politics, pure and simple.”
“Oh and you’d know all about that eh, Jacko, you being a Chief Super and all, wheeling and dealing with the guv’nors up at the dream factory. Back in the old days when we were booties, you’d’ve gone in there and knocked some sense into him when the dumb foot soldiers were about to get their arses kicked on the farm.”
“We’re not wearing the Globe and Laurel now, Royal, “ Jackson rebuked mildly. He and Doyle went way back to their hitch in the Royal Marines and the gulf of rank was bridged by a shared brotherhood, “so just for the benefit of your CID education, the story goes like this. Half the brass had to fall on their swords when that hatchet job of an enquiry blew the lid off how cosy they’d got with the media moguls, so the new broom upstairs got guiding light from Marsham Street to purge the system with new blood, and who’d got a rep for incorruptibility?”
“The Hammer?”
“Got it in one. Like I said, Met politics pure and simple. Nothing like a whiter than white Presbyterian to create the right impression with our lords and masters, so McGee got parachuted in all revved up and raring to go.”
“Well he wont be so cocky when he’s looking at blood in the gutters,” Doyle said, “the farm’s like a tinderbox, one spark and its going to blow. Be like an action replay of Tottenham when we went steaming in mob handed and poor old Keith Blakelock copped it.”
“Or the last summer’s riots,” Jackson reflected, “London burning and we almost lost it, doesn’t bear thinking about.”
“You’d better think about it, guv,” Doyle said, “because the word on the street is the Purvis Street posse and the Hard Rock crew are tooling up and if The Hammer keeps jerking their chain, its going to blow anytime soon. The farm will be the battleground and we’ll take a pasting, mark my words.”
Jackson shook his head, “for your further edification, Peter, that’s the snag with the knee-jerk fix, more often than not you lose more than you gain. Time was when we drew our key players from our own ranks, steeped in the lore of the Metropolitan Police. Too incestuous for our lily livered politicos these days, so we pay the penalty.”
“Or to be more precise,” Doyle said, “the troops pay the penalty when it all goes pear shaped.”
They were working out in the machine room at The City Gym just down the Walworth Road from the Elephant and Castle, keeping up a fitness regime which had become second nature since their military service. In the old days they would have chewed the fat in a smoky South London bar, but times had changed. Despite their exertions, neither man was breaking sweat.
“So what’s the received wisdom from CID?” Jackson asked as he dialled his machine up to maximum for the last ten minutes of the work out. Now a few beads of moisture began to glisten in his iron-grey buzz cut.
“If we’re going to get anywhere it’ll have to be intel led,” Doyle said, following suit, “cut ‘em off at the head with something that’ll stick in court. We know they’re on Facebook and Twitter and using good old Blackberry messenger to rally the troops so we need surveillance and intercepts…”
“You’ve been watching reruns of The Wire?” Jackson interrupted, grinning.
“Better than that,” Doyle said, “I was down at Lambeth Road with a bagful of Zatopec exhibits when I bumped into Trevor…you know Trevor, the techie?”
“Clever Trevor?”
“That’s the one, the lab’s star boffin, and he was showing off his latest gizmos, fibre optics, trackers, super snoopers, digital logging, insect cam…”
Jackson stopped pedalling on the ping. “Insect cam?”
“You wouldn’t believe it, Harry, he’s got this drone, you know remote controlled like the Predator the Yanks use in Afghanistan, only this is the size of a bee and you can fly it from miles away. Got it from a mate of his, tech contractor for the CIA, apparently they’re developing it for the battlefield.”
“Give me strength,” Jackson sighed, “sometimes I’m glad I’m just a thick copper.”
“So what are we going to do about The Hammer before someone cops it?” Doyle returned to the thread, which had been exercising their minds.
“Well he’s got his heads of departments meeting tomorrow morning, so I’ll get an idea which way the winds blowing. With a bit of luck he’ll have gone off the boil.”
“What’ll we do if he hasn’t?”
Jackson shrugged. “Cross that bridge when we come to it,” he said.
The Hammer called it “morning prayers.”
At oh-nine-hundred sharp his executive subordinates, Chief Superintendents in charge of the Borough patrol and response reliefs; the Territorial Support Group; Special Ops, Road Policing and enforcement Comms and Administration trooped into the Borough Commander’s briefing room adjacent to his suite of offices on the fourth floor of the Cromwell Road police station.
As the senior man, and to all intents and purposes the BC’s de facto deputy, Jacko had them seated around the conference table and looking reasonably presentable when the door leading through to little God’s inner sanctum opened and The Hammer entered. Strutted would have been a better description for the newly minted Borough Commander had the bearing of a bantam cock, chest thrust out, and eyes flinty.
“Sit gentlemen,” McGee waved a magnanimous hand as chairs were shuffled and the seats of uniform trousers were lifted an inch or two. “Thank you Harry,” The Hammer accepted the chair at the head of the table and surveyed the assembly.
“Now I know I’m new in town and so I’m prepared to give a little leeway until you get used to my way of doing things, so let's be clear, excellence is standard in my book, anything that falls below that benchmark is u
nacceptable, am I clear on that?”
The helpless audience nodded.
“So it is with some regret that I have to tell you I was very disappointed in your performance last night…very disappointed.” Gimlet eyes ranged around the table. “Sloppy police work, gentlemen, very sloppy indeed. Now that may have been acceptable to my predecessor, but it is not what I expect. Excellence is standard, remember, I hope I won’t have to remind you again.” The Hammer skewered each one in turn. “Last night we almost lost it to the mob. Almost lost it! Now as I think you know I gained a certain reputation in Strathclyde, gained it policing some of the meanest streets in Glasgow, and I never, never gentlemen, surrendered those streets to the mob and I don’t plan to start now.”
Jackson groaned inwardly as he imagined The Hammer fishing in his pocket for ball bearings. He began to clear his throat, but Mc Gee held up a hand. “No apology needed Harry,” he said with a thin smile, “Like I said at the outset, you’re not yet used to the high standards I demand from all of us. Pride in the Borough, gentlemen, pride in the Met. We rule the streets, remember, not some sewer rats with exaggerated sense of their own importance.”
As McGee continued to berate them Jacko flashed back to The Farm, the scene revolving in slo-mo as the mood changed from sullen resentment to sporadic violence. The Farm was a grim collection of high-rise towers connected by a labyrinth of