Prime Target. Hugh Miller

turning left down Walpole Street and right on to St Leonard’s Terrace. One of his many superstitions dictated that if he took the same route back to base on consecutive nights, something bad would happen. Last night he went straight down the King’s Road and got to his digs via Smith Street. It was much quicker than this way, but what was a gain in speed alongside the chance of bad fortune?

      Approaching the bottom of Royal Avenue he looked up and saw two policemen walking towards him. They were 15 metres away but he was sure they were looking at him. He checked his watch. It was twenty minutes since he did the job, long enough for a description to be circulated. He reminded himself his face had been half covered, as it was now.

      But what if they were looking for an Arabic type with half his face covered?

      He decided to go up Royal Avenue. He turned right sharply and bumped into a woman. He hadn’t even seen her. His foot came down on hers and she yelped. He glanced at the policemen. They were definitely looking at him now.

      ‘I’m so sorry,’ he said to the woman. ‘Please forgive me for being so clumsy -’

      ‘Stupid idiot!’

      He tried to move past her and she swung her folded umbrella at him, hitting his shoulder. He smelled whisky. Of all the people to walk into, he had to pick a belligerent drunk. He pushed her away, but she resisted and tried to hit him again. He stepped aside and she stumbled, swinging wildly. She missed and fell over with a heavy bump, howling as the contents of her shopper scattered across the pavement.

      ‘Hoi! You!’

      It was one of the policemen.

      ‘I have done nothing,’ the Arab called. ‘She slipped and fell, that is all.’

      ‘Just stay where you are, mate. Stay put.’

      They were coming for him. His heart began to race. He jumped over the flailing woman and sprinted along Royal Avenue. Leafy branches of garden shrubs slapped his face as he ran.

      ‘Stop! Come back here!’

      He put his head down and pumped his legs furiously, hearing the voice of Ahmad Shawqi: ‘Never be taken by the police,’ he always warned. ‘Avoid all police in all countries. There is no worse mis-fortune than to be taken.’

      It was one of his superstitions, anyway. If the police ever took him, eternal bad fortune would befall himself and his family. As he ran it occurred to him that last night he had gone back to his digs by the route he had just taken; it was the day before that he had gone straight down the King’s Road…

      ‘Right, pal, hold it right there.’

      Impossibly, one of the policemen was standing ahead of him, arms spread, clutching his baton. The Arab stiffened his legs, frantically slowing himself as he realized they must have split up and this one had cut through a garden to get in front.

      ‘Don’t do anything silly, now -’

      The Arab ran off the pavement into the traffic, narrowly missing the front of a taxi. He spun away from the near-impact and found himself with his hands flat on the bonnet of a police car. As the blunder registered, the driver and his partner were out and coming for him.

      He turned to run and saw the first pair of constables heading straight towards him. He turned back, ran, and slammed into the side of a removals van.

      ‘Right!’ a constable shouted, grabbing him. ‘Don’t move a muscle!’

      A strong hand took his shoulder, the other twisted his left arm up his back. He plunged his free hand into his pocket and grabbed the gun. There were four policemen and they were all close. Even if he worked at his fastest, he knew he could never get them all before they took him. There was only one possible course of action.

      ‘Shit! He’s got a gun!’

      He saw frantic hands coming at him, fingers hooked to drag him down. In an instant the muzzle of the gun was in his mouth. He tried to think of something noble, an image that would define his life.

      Nothing came.

      He shut his eyes and pulled the trigger.

      ‘It is Tuesday 27th February, 1996,’ the fat pathologist wheezed into the tape recorder hanging on his chest. ‘The time is sixteen-thirty-three hours. I am Doctor Sidney Lewis and I am conducting a preliminary examination on the body of an unidentified male. The body was brought to the coroner’s mortuary at Fulham by ambulance from St Agnes’ hospital, where the subject was declared dead on arrival at sixteen-oh-eight hours, this date.’

      Dr Lewis switched off the recorder and waited as an attendant led two constables and a plainclothes policeman into the autopsy room.

      ‘I’m DI Latham,’ the plainclothes man said. ‘These are Constables Bryant and Dempsey. They were in pursuit of the dead man shortly before he died.’

      Lewis looked at them. ‘You’re the two who were chasing him when he panicked and shot himself?’

      ‘If you care to put it that way,’ the taller one, Dempsey, said coldly.

      ‘And why have you come here?’

      ‘I wanted them to look at the body and tell me it’s the man they chased,’ Latham said. ‘There can be identity problems with Middle Eastern types, and since this case could turn messy, I want basic facts established before everything gets obscured by jargon.’

      Dr Lewis waved a hand at the corpse. ‘Well, then, gentlemen, is this the man in question?’

      ‘That’s him all right,’ Dempsey said. Bryant nodded.

      ‘Fine.’ Lewis grasped the handle at the top end of the tray holding the body. ‘Now, tell me before we go any further, are there any mysteries here? I mean, do we know how he died, for sure? Was it the way I’ve been told? He took his own life, without a shadow of doubt?’

      ‘That’s clearly established,’ Latham said. ‘But there’s plenty of mystery, just the same. We don’t know who he is, we don’t know why the gun, or why he shot himself with it.’

      ‘Shortly after shooting a woman in Mayfair,’ Constable Dempsey added.

      ‘Not yet confirmed,’ Latham snapped. ‘But that’s likely,’ he told Dr Lewis. ‘He appears to have shot and killed a woman as she looked in a gallery window on Cork Street.’

      ‘Who was she?’

      ‘We don’t know that yet, either. All very confused at this stage. There’s a diplomatic angle. American. We’ll know more in an hour or so.‘

      ‘I see what you mean by messy,’ Lewis said. ‘Never mind, in the meantime we can generate paperwork.’ He switched on a bright striplight above the autopsy table. ‘I don’t think we’re going to find much that isn’t obvious already. If one or both of you constables would help me with the clothing, it will speed matters.’

      He saw Bryant scowl and watched Dempsey work up a look of affront.

      ‘Is there a problem?’

      Bryant shrugged sullenly.

      Dempsey said, ‘I don’t remember signing up for anything like this.’

      ‘Blame your own bad timing,’ Lewis said. ‘You drove this poor soul to kill himself at approximately the same time a debt collector in Parsons Green pushed two of his targets against the plate-glass window of a betting shop with rather too much force. The glass gave way and the debtors were cut almost in half. They’re through in the other room being stripped at this moment by my only assistant - the bloodstained one who showed you in.’

      ‘I don’t think you have the right to say we drove this man to -’

      ‘It was a joke, for God’s sake!’ Lewis said. ‘A bloody joke, of which we need plenty in this charnel house.’ He shook his head at DI Latham. ‘A sense of humour should be a prerequisite for the job.’

      The