Two Tops

Take a tour of London, you’ll see the sights: Big Ben, Hyde Park, St Paul's. Tour the Big Smoke with Lee Stern, the Met’s foremost detective for the best part of thirty years, and you’ll see something quite different.

It's two o'clock on a Thursday afternoon in coldest December, somewhere in the East End. Lee Stern, a 37 year-old whose rude health is no more evidently displayed than in a radiant face of chiselled features, full brown hair and keen hazel eyes, is sitting in the front passenger’s seat of a Peugeot 206, about 55 yards opposite a warehouse. Detective Constable Glen Figgis sits in the driver's seat. The car is parked under the awning of an abandoned buttery from the Late Middle Ages. Figgis has steered the motor, under Lee’s strict supervision, so that the greater part is obscured behind two rusty shipping containers. The space uncovered by the containers allows Lee and Glen a sight line four meters across, through which they can see the small, dingy entrance to the crime den that is Dobb’s Weir.

The owner of the spot is one of London’s big hitters, Chris Parker or ‘Parks and Death Creation’, as some of Lee’s colleagues call him after a popular TV show. Lee hasn’t seen the show, won’t see it. His free time is almost wholly devoted to scrivening.

A scrivener since 8, Lee’s only hobby gives him the edge on most cops by virtue of the immense concentration the exercise demands. Although he can’t do it as much as he’d like, he manages to knock out something, good or bad, at least once a week. He keeps his work in his basement since the loft is full. Plus ça change. The pastime keeps his wits intact, his brain zooming way over the speed limit.

As well as scrivening, Lee’s immense head is something his superiors attribute with the honor of sorting positive leads from dead ends. Lee agrees with this reasoning. His power within the police force has enabled him to insert into his unit’s application process a requirement that candidates heads surpass 60 centimeters in width. If an officer doesn’t meet the specification, they don’t bother. No wonder the floor where Lee’s team works is christened ‘Bighead Bust’, as Lee’s influence and head size of his colleagues has grown.

The small-headed, overweight and bleary-eyed Glen Figgis is 47. His age is important, precluding as it does cephalic girth from invalidating his suitability for policing alongside Lee. Predictably, he is an ignoramus, a stultifying and idiotic component of his profession.

The reason Glen wasn’t mowed down the moment Lee walked into CID is because of Glen's singular ability to identify arch criminals from petty thugs. It is a sixth-sense that never fails. He is therefore invaluable, a magic lamp everyone in the Met rubs, non-sexually, whenever they can.

Despite his unique talent, Glen’s general stupidity is enraging to be around for more than a few minutes. As such, he is a constant source of enervation for Lee, an annoyance the detective has tried to bat away with booze. Failing that, Lee amuses himself with japes at Glen's expense, taking advantage of the latter’s astounding gullibility. For instance, over the course of today’s stakeout, Lee has gotten Glen to believe a ridiculous amount of nonsense already. For example, Glen now assents that:

1. Geese speak perfect English.

2. His own face is sometimes the wrong way around.

3. Butter is explosive and should never be bought. If Glen had ingested it – he had, Lee suggested he could save himself from certain death by submerging his head in berries twenty times a day. Glen happened to have a grapevine in his lunchbox and promptly rubbed it over his face for as long as Lee could keep from laughing. After five minutes of daubing the progressively slushier red grapes over his face, Lee told him to stop. Glen’s efforts were enough to stave off catastrophe for today, probably.

4. Outer space isn’t real; it is a picture projected from the top of Buckingham Palace.

The more elaborate the ruse the easier Glen is to convince. Simpler subterfuge requires persistence. It took Glen two months to acknowledge that all of the countries in the world besides Great Britain are joined together. In the course of indoctrinating this geographical absurdity into Glen's head, Lee learnt that Glen had never left London, a revelation necessitating the addendum that everyone living on the foreign supercontinent measures under three-foot. Glen had taken time to swallow this, too, but finally caved.

Not to say Glen cannot be conversed with meaningfully. As well as his powers of identifying criminals, Glen possesses an unparalleled fluency when discussing the details of the prominent case pursued by his department. However, this articulation is offset by the fact that he is completely wordless when queried on cases that are closed, in spite of the mastery of these investigations particulars he displays when they are ongoing. The case at hand is what Lee and Glen are about to speak of.

"So, who is this Thatcher Macey, an arms dealer or just some crackhead running errands?" Lee inquired of Glen, nonchalantly.

"Thatcher’s a peasant from Salisbury. He once formed a band called Long Live the Working Class. Their songs were post-punk diatribes marked by grievances with the political establishment. Real piece of work. Then he starts printing money. It’s unclear how he learns to but he must have had some proficiency. Only months after he starts, he's hired by Stepney Crime Syndicate, which is how he knows Chris. He’s an interesting character. As well as printing money he’s dealing drugs to a rich set in Chelsea, one of them Harvey Garrick."

"Garrick, isn’t he related to one of the brass? One of Dave Townsend’s cousins?" Lee loved this. Sitting back, he could ask Glen anything and get a comprehensive answer.

"Well, this is the best par-"

Just as Glen was speaking a kaboom noise – that is the best word for it – assails Lee and forces him diving into the footwell. It takes only a second to realize what has happened.

First off, the light grey upholstery of the Peugeot is now stained by rich, deep shades of mottled red. Blood is on Lee’s clothes, hands and face, while gore drops splashing from the headliner – and Glen’s head is gone. Not gone exactly, but the greater part eviscerated, chunks of it everywhere. Lee also perceives that one of Glen’s eyelids, reddened rather by grape pulp than blood, he judges, rests just above his right trouser pocket. From the stump of the slightly bent body, a gurgling, spattering stream of crimson runs, flooding the gear stick’s roomy concave base and squirting the dashboard.

A weapon of significant caliber has obviously done for Glen; if Lee had to guess what kind, he would say it were a 12-gauge shotgun. This would account for the near obliteration of the head.

Another shot – another kaboom. On this occasion, pellets rip Glen’s right flank, some tearing out of his chest smashing the windshield, others missing him, mangling the car’s plastic interior and bursting through the metal on the other side with a deafening squeal. Glass slices Lee’s face. He even feels a minuscule shard drop into his right eye, causing him to cry out. Car foam is a more welcome festoon, but the anticipation of a third shot, and from where it might come, is the insurmountable matter at hand.

Quickly, Lee comes out of a crunched position and stretches his legs, tucking his feet under the driver’s seat and burrowing the top of his head in the groove under his door panel, his body twisted to make a smaller target.

He bends backward, too, sensing the third shot will slam into his door and so arranges himself to avoid any spray hitting his face. He squints his eyes, as the window pane on the driver’s side is only shattered and will fly directly at him once the shell hits it.

In the ferocious wail of gunfire that comes next, Glen’s body takes less of a beating. The shot buries most of its load into Lee’s door as the detective expected it would. Preparations have ensured Lee’s head has evaded fire, but fragments of led and glass have smacked into his left arm. The pain is incredible, but Lee's wits move faster than pain's ability to impair them.

The gunman, who has caused such disrepair to Lee’s partner, car and Lee himself, is now leaning inside the vehicle, pointing the weapon Lee had correctly surmised it would be, a 12-gauge pump, squarely at his face.

This time, Lee fires. His semi-automatic pistol, whipped from a shoulder holster and clasped in a shaking right hand, sends a round through the assailant’s trigger guard. The aim isn’t meant so deliberately. It's an instinctive, life-preserving shot. An effective one. Lee’s bullet has snapped the gunman’s trigger apparatus and index finger clean off.

The gunman, clad in a balaclava that can't conceal maniacal, male eyes, jerks back but not from the vehicle, the top of his head banging the upper rim of the window. In this movement the assassin's weapon fires in line with physical action. Directed barely north of Lee’s face the round smashes into the battered door, blowing it off its hinges. Lee’s head pops out of the space, squeezed as it was by its former placement.

Terrorized, Lee fires eight rounds into the figure before him. Four hit the face, three the neck, and one the upper chest of the gunman's body, covered by a hoodless green jacket. Around five of Lee's shots are superfluous, the result of fear for life giving way to control over the fate of his would-be killer.

This will be some tale, thinks Lee, as he steels himself against the painful wait for an ambulance. Though his phone lies within reach in the glove compartment, no call for aid is possible. He cannot move.

Oh, London.