The Common Enemy. Paul Gitsham

Sergeant David Hutchinson who asked the first question.

      ‘Apparently his brother tried to ring him at about 4 p.m., but the phone went straight to voicemail. He wasn’t worried at first, he figured he was either in custody or taking cover somewhere. He and a couple of others rang him again between four and five and eventually assumed that he had been arrested. They already knew that at least some of their friends were in the back of a police van.’

      ‘So nobody raised the alarm?’

      ‘No, although I don’t think that’s too surprising. I doubt their first instinct would be to call the police. Besides which, they were enjoying the hospitality of The Feathers. They weren’t planning on going anywhere for a few hours.’

      ‘When was the body found?’

      ‘The switchboard received a call at 6.31 from the owner of the chip shop to the left of the alleyway. They’d closed for a few hours when the trouble kicked off and were putting the bins out prior to reopening when they found him.’

      Warren changed slide to one showing a wide angle shot of a narrow gap between a fish and chip shop and a nail and hair bar. Large waste bins took up three quarters of the width, leaving barely enough room for a large man to squeeze past. Blue and white crime scene tape demarked the entrance. A large pool of dark red blood was clearly visible.

      ‘So we have a gap of almost four hours between the last known photograph of him and his body being discovered. Do we have a time of death yet?’ This time it was Detective Constable Gary Hastings who asked the question. The young officer was currently applying for promotion to sergeant and was no doubt desperate to ask a question in the presence of senior officers. Unfortunately, he was standing at the back and nobody bothered to turn around to see who had spoken.

      ‘I’m afraid the weather was so warm that his core temperature had yet to fall by a significant amount, DC Hastings. The pathologist may be a bit more helpful after the post-mortem is completed, but I doubt we’ll narrow the window of opportunity very much.’

      Even if ACC Naseem didn’t know Hastings’ face, Warren could at least name-drop the young officer.

      ‘What about cause of death?’ asked DC Karen Hardwick.

      ‘Preliminary finding is stabbing; you can see how much blood was lost. He has some other superficial cuts and bruises that may have arisen during the riot. Again, the PM will tell us more.’

      ‘What about CCTV?’ DSI Grayson was the questioner now.

      ‘We’ve pulled the footage from all of the cameras on the high street and all the businesses in the vicinity, but, as you can see, there are significant blind spots.’

      A simple, top-down line drawing of the alleyway and the surrounding street replaced the photograph. The locations of fixed cameras were marked, along with arcs showing their fields of view.

      ‘Unfortunately, there was only one camera covering the opening of the alleyway and none at the rear. Irritatingly that camera was broken a couple of days ago and hadn’t been repaired.’

      ACC Naseem shifted slightly in his chair. ‘Premeditation?’

      ‘A good question, sir. It was taken out by a brick on Thursday night. Since there were no break-ins or crimes reported in the area, it was logged as petty vandalism and no one attended.’

      ‘I hope that oversight has been addressed, DCI Jones.’

      Warren let the implied rebuke slide; pointing out that the unit’s strategic priorities placed low-level criminal damage well down the list would have been unwise, given that several of the people responsible for deciding those priorities were seated in the room.

      ‘Yes, sir. We’re looking at other cameras in the vicinity from that time period to see if we can identify the culprit.’

      ‘What is the status of the crime scene?’

      ‘The crime scene investigators are still there, doing a fingertip search for the murder weapon. We’ve blocked off most of the town centre because we aren’t sure what route Mr Meegan took to the alleyway. Sunday trading laws mean we have the area to ourselves for another couple of hours, but I’ll need authorisation to keep the area closed much longer.’

      Naseem nodded to Grayson.

      Warren clicked to the blank slide that signalled the end of the presentation.

      ‘It’s going to be a big investigation, people. We have a team from HQ down in Welwyn Garden City joining us later to boost our numbers. In addition, the fire that broke out at the Islamic Centre at about the same time has been confirmed as suspicious. It looks as if it might also be upgraded to homicide if two victims sheltering in the centre when it caught fire don’t pull through.’

      ‘How likely do you think it is that the fire was linked with Tommy Meegan’s murder?’ asked the Superintendent sitting to the left of ACC Naseem. ‘Could it have been tit-for-tat?’

      ‘Based on the timings, it looks as though a direct retaliation either way is unlikely, ma’am. However I believe that some sort of link is likely.’

      ‘Thank you, DCI Jones.’ Naseem stood up and turned to address the assembled officers.

      ‘As you all know, it takes a lot to get me out of my office.’ A few polite chuckles passed around the room. ‘Unfortunately, this is going to be a big deal. I think we can all agree that the death of Tommy Meegan is no great loss to humanity, but his murder is going to cause us significant problems going forwards. Middlesbury’s a small town, with pretty good community relations for the most part, but this could cause all manner of trouble. You don’t need me to tell you that what is likely to happen if it transpires that the fire at the Islamic Centre and the protest march are linked. You also don’t need me to tell you that yesterday’s counter-protest policing didn’t go to plan. Clearly, not enough resources were deployed. The decision was then made to reassign other resources, leaving the Islamic Centre vulnerable.

      ‘The press are all over us. We’ll be announcing a review in due course but in the meantime I want to make it absolutely clear that all communication with the media goes through the press office.’ He fixed the room with a glare. ‘Anybody caught going off-message with members of the fourth estate will be in my office explaining themselves. That includes social media. Keep your mouths shut and stick to posting pictures of kittens on Facebook.’

      A mutter of assent rippled around the room. Warren hoped the rebuke would have effect, these days one ill-thought tweet could go viral and end a career.

      With that, Naseem retook his seat and the next speaker stood up.

      ‘Morning, everybody, I’m Theo Garfield from Hertfordshire Constabulary’s Hate Crime Intelligence Unit. I liaise with the National Crime Agency and other groups such as the Football Intelligence Unit and the Social Media Intelligence Unit. I’m here to make sure that you have all the information you need about the late Mr Meegan and his band of merry men and to place some of yesterday afternoon’s events into context for you.’

      Theo Garfield was a whip-thin man with a shaved head and dark olive complexion. His accent remained resolutely Merseyside, although it was clear that he had been living in the south for some years. He too was armed with a PowerPoint presentation, although his was a lot slicker than Warren’s.

      ‘As you are aware, Mr Meegan was the spokesperson for the British Allegiance Party, or BAP as it is commonly known; apparently all the good names were taken.’ Garfield smiled briefly. ‘They tried a couple of other three letter acronyms, but were threatened with legal action if they didn’t stop using them. Not that their current name is without its problems Allegiance is a difficult word to spell and so Unite Against Fascism have bought the web domain names with the most common misspellings and redirect lost visitors to their own site.’

      Laughter rippled around the room.

      ‘BAP are a motley bunch. As always with these organisations, the hardcore wouldn’t fill more than a minibus, but they can muster a coachload