Cuffed Read online

  Cuffed

  by

  Marc Horn

  Copyright © 2014 Marc Horn

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

  All characters and events in this publication are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, or any events past or present, are purely coincidental.

  This novel is written using UK English.

  With a clairvoyant-like ability to hunt down criminals, Razors is a police asset. To his supervisors he's a liability; a brutal street cop who makes his own rules.

  But Razors' skills are about to be severely tested; he's investigating mankind.

  He's formed a mind-blowing theory about existence, and if he proves it's true, it threatens everyone.

  Busting gangs was easy. Now he's up against 7 billion of us, all fighting for survival...

  1

  I never flap, lose my nerve, shit myself. I never have.

  Even when I first gave evidence, all those years ago, I wasn’t nervous. I was devastated that my father was dead, but the officials and their questions had not fazed me. I told them what I’d seen: my father tackling a burglar in our house; the burglar pulling a knife out of his pocket and sticking it in my father. My father had not told the burglar he was going to kill him. He had not used excessive force. All he’d done was try to restrain him. Nonetheless, the burglar was found to have been acting in self-defence. For murdering my father he served ten years for burglary.

  That was British justice. That’s why I joined the Metropolitan Police.

  *****

  I stop my Mondeo for a chav at a pedestrian crossing. She’s oblivious to me; if I hadn’t stopped, crap loads of jewellery, fake designer clothes and a pair of white Reeboks would’ve crashed through my windscreen, and I’d have had a face full of bare belly. Naturally she omits to thank me for according precedence to her. Should she? I wonder. Is it good manners? It’s the law, isn’t it? I don’t expect thanks when I stop at a red light, do I? I watch her swagger along the pavement, barging past a mother with a pram and almost knocking them into the road. The mother says something but the chav doesn’t look back. Someone behind hoots me.

  Did I create the chav?... Why the fuck would I create the chav? Obnoxious and antisocial – hardly very civilised. Could my mind really have concocted all that attitude, rebelliousness and hapless imitation?

  Now several cars hoot. Someone shouts, ‘Wake up!’ I reach through the open window, let them know they’re all wankers, then I drive fifty metres and turn into the police station yard.

  At nine-thirty, I stroll into the canteen. Half of my team are eating. As I pass by, I hear them discussing Clare’s rack. She’s present at the table, but takes it in her stride and continues eating.

  ‘Hey, Razors,’ Cliff calls out to me. ‘You seen Clare’s knockers?’

  ‘No he hasn’t!’ she cuts in.

  I smile at her. She’s turned red. I quite like her. Useless copper, but amiable and reasonably attractive. Nice dark hair.

  ‘Won’t be long, son,’ Cliff informs me. ‘She’s munching her way through the whole team.’

  I wish sex was like wet dreams. No physical contact, just the euphoric feelings. Connection holds no appeal for me. Sex has no meaning. It’s just a basic need in humans – physical gratification. This is one of the few personal views I keep to myself. Women don’t like to hear stuff like that. It would mean no sex.

  I turn back to the counter and order two brews. Coppers rant on about the dangers of shagging colleagues. That’s because the women – and sometimes the blokes – think it’s the start of something permanent. A blissful future finally unfolding before them. Then they get clingy, and persistently interrogate work mates until they’ve sucked out every single meaningless thing their new shag’s said about them. And they start sending millions of texts.

  I glance back at Clare and catch her eye before she shyly looks down at her meal. She’s only been on team for six months or so. A couple of weeks after she joined us I threw her mobile phone out of the police van window. I was hunting for slags one night duty, and all she was doing was sending texts. The incessant beeping was doing my head in. I asked her to type a dodgy vehicle’s registration into the MDT (mobile data terminal) to find out if it had been reported stolen, but she ignored me and continued tapping away. I lost it. I can’t take disrespect – my reputation is well-established.

  She gasped when I snatched it out of her hand, and then again when we heard it ‘plop’ into a garden pond.

  I carry the brews over to Satan, the new addition to the team, who sits on an otherwise empty table at the end of the canteen. I’ve been assigned to tutor him for the first few shifts. I can drive the nerves out of anyone. ‘Mind if I call you Satan?’

  He smiles – a good sign.

  ‘My divisional numbers, I know. I can’t believe they gave me 666.’

  ‘Ah well, let’s go out. Take your brew with you. I’m sure you’ve heard enough bullshit at Hendon.’ He laughs. ‘I’m Razors.’ We shake hands – his grip’s weak. I wonder it’s ever formed a fist. Clean-cut, soft features, well spoken, probably never had a fight. Yet another addition to the growing list of naive, sheltered students joining the job.

  ‘Why do they call you that?’ he asks. ‘Or is it your real name?’

  ‘You’ll find out.’ His dark fringe is uneven, his slender frame hunched, but it’s his piercing blue eyes, shining like crystals, that fascinate me. My mate Foreskin has the same eyes. Same shape, colour, and his too are puffed.

  ‘Okay... so... have we been assigned a call to deal with?’

  ‘No.’

  I’ve seen many people experience nerves. Some shake, some break out in sweat, and some, like young Satan, start waffling. A bad thing, nerves. I’ve seen nerves fuck up a lot of good jobs. Defence solicitors cross-examining coppers at court and tying them in knots. Distances, times and descriptions – the simplest of things and yet tools of the trade for solicitors. Once a copper’s been put on the spot and has to answer from memory – because he hadn’t recorded the information in his arrest notes – the seed of doubt’s been planted. And the sprouting branches frequently intertwine with all the subsequent evidence.

  It’s a nice, hot day. I pick out a marked car and after checking it over we drive towards the barrier which slowly starts to rise. The barrier raised, I wait. Something has caught my eye. I look at Satan. ‘See that house opposite? Blue door?’

  ‘Yes, erm, I can see it.’

  I roll the car forwards a little and squint. ‘Those curtains. All three of them are blowing, right? All the windows are closed... yet the curtains are blowing. You see that?’

  ‘Yes...’

  ‘The houses either side of that one – their curtains aren’t blowing. What the fuck is making these three blow about?’

  ‘Well... the back door could be open... or perhaps a rear window...’

  ‘Yeah? It’s a hot day. Did you feel a breeze? I didn’t.’

  ‘... Maybe the family’s using a fan?’

  ‘Three of them? Upstairs too?’

  Abnormalities, irregularities, inconsistencies, coincidences – they happen to me all the time. At least Satan sees the same thing, the same visual message. But why does it happen all the time? Yesterday I stopped at a pedestrian crossing to let a fat man with a stripy bow tie cross. A few minutes later, several streets away, I let the same guy cross at another pedestrian crossing. He could not have got there in that time.

  ‘There’s no air,’ I say. ‘Even if you are right about that, why does just that one house have its rea
r windows open? I can see at least ten others with still curtains.’

  ‘I... don’t know.’

  Am I losing it? Or am I unravelling a gargantuan and mind-blowing truth? Did I make all this up? Is this really my universe?

  2

  I threw my first punch a year after my father’s murder. I was six years old. Joey Hart, my best friend at the time, was chasing me in the school playground. Fast as lightning, I skipped around dozens of kids and then I collided with Jason Harper. He staggered backwards a couple of steps and then clenched his fists. I remember the entire school turning silent. Everyone watched as the hardest kid in the year puffed out his chest and swaggered towards me. Harper pushed me once. When he drew back his arms to push me again, I swivelled my hip in perfect synchronisation with my flying fist, and caught him right on the nose.

  Ever since that day no one has bothered me. I’m considered a loose cannon. Yes, this profile means I miss out on relationships with certain women, but such relations are not the straightforward, sexual ones I prefer.

  Harper’s blood stained my fingers. When Mr Butt ran over, grabbed a clump of my hair and dragged me to the staff room, he failed to quell my sense of wonder. The power, the ability to totally satiate my needs was overwhelming. That punch had exploded from me, like some awesome act of nature. It felt so significant, so fated to happen, that I believed my input had been unnecessary. I was just the embodiment of nature’s will. That was the beginning of my addiction to justified violence.

  I told Mr Butt what had happened, but disbelief in my version of events was becoming a common occurrence. Only after he spoke to other witnesses was I believed. That was after he told me I was a thug, a fool and a loser in life.

  I washed my hands lightly. Faint streaks of blood remained. I stared at them for the remainder of the day. They were the souvenirs of my euphoria, my calling. I had found a diversion.

  ‘Have you ever used your CS spray?’

  I glance at Satan and blink a few times. That was a vivid flashback. ‘... I’ve been in fifteen years. What do you think?’

  ‘Oh... sorry... I didn’t know you had that much service. I suppose... yes... you would have used it many times.’

  ‘Actually, I’ve never used it.’

  ‘Oh...’

  ‘Violence is a last resort, Satan. In our profession we should be able to verbally control aggressive individuals. Calm and pacify. Red mist is our enemy. We must be tolerant at all times.’

  ‘I know that.’

  I laugh. He looks a little ashamed. ‘Don’t be a twat, Satan. I’m taking the piss. Some geezer comes at you, fucking flatten him. Hit him in the face so hard that he doesn’t get up. That’s what he wants to do to you...’

  You can either punch or you can’t. I can punch. Punching is an art form. A good right-hander involves the whole body. It takes the right timing, balance and nerve. In my opinion it can’t be taught. You either have it or you don’t.

  Satan’s gone quiet. A little insensitive of me, I suppose, to drive home such hard truths so early on. But then, I remind myself, crime isn’t going to wait for Satan to switch on.

  ‘What’s your name?’ I ask.

  ‘Noah.’

  ‘Noah? Fucking Noah? And you go by that?’

  ‘Well, yes. It’s my name.’

  ‘Jesus. Bet you took some flak for that!’

  ‘Not really. Not too much. Once people knew it didn’t bother me they relented.’

  I pull over in a quiet side street, take out my spiral notebook and start to write in it.

  ‘What have you seen?’ Noah asks.

  ‘Nothing. This is my journal.’

  ‘You write your journal at work?’

  ‘Yeah. Otherwise I’d forget what happened. See, my life is becoming quite bizarre. This helps me understand it.’

  I jot down Noah’s name and his comments about it, his familiar eyes, the chav and curtains from earlier, then put the notebook back in my pocket.

  ‘What’s the latest update on the high-risk misper?’

  He’s referring to Ethan Kent, a thirteen year old who went missing two weeks ago. His disappearance has attracted a great deal of police and media attention.

  ‘He still hasn’t turned up,’ I say.

  ‘That’s unfortunate. It must be horrible for his family.’

  ‘I doubt it. They’re regular visitors to the station – act as the little slag’s appropriate adult on an almost daily basis. They’ve got no fucking morals, not an ounce of decency amongst them. They raised him to be a thief. All they’ll miss is the stolen property he brings home.’

  After a lengthy silence he says, ‘I didn’t know he had previous convictions.’

  ‘An adept burglar, young Kent. Skinny piece of shit. Either sticks his arm through letterboxes and opens the locks or slithers through open windows. He’s a good climber.’

  ‘Really? I didn’t know.’

  I look at him. Too serious for my liking. ‘Still think it’s unfortunate?’ He doesn’t answer, just smiles. He’s way suspicious. Probably sensible in these times of backstabbers and whistleblowers.

  ‘How old are you, son?’ I ask.

  ‘I’m thirty-one.’

  ‘Born eighty or eighty-one?’ I’m quick at maths.

  ‘Nineteen eighty.’

  ‘You must be a Star Wars fan? I’m not talking about the pony prequels, I’m talking about the original trilogy.’

  ‘A New Hope? Yes, I like it... And the other two.’

  ‘Good man. When you enter my living room, the first thing you see is a poster of a pivotal character from the films. Who d’you think that character is? Think carefully. Think underrated character.’

  ‘It wouldn’t be Skywalker... Solo...’ He inhales deeply through his nostrils. ‘I’ll say Chewbacca.’

  I shake my head and smile. No one gets this. ‘R2-D2,’ I proudly announce.

  ‘A droid...? Is a droid a character?’

  ‘Chewbacca’s hardly human,’ I counter. ‘Right now I can’t be bothered to list all his vital accomplishments, but have a think about R2’s contributions. Without him the rebels would not have won.’

  Noah nods. ‘You’re right. He is underrated.’

  I nod back. Bigging up the little fella warms me... Then the control room call me up on the radio. They want me to see the superintendent...

  *****

  ‘It was a wave, sir,’ I say, as I sit in front of him.

  ‘I’m not an idiot, Razors. Unfortunately, neither is George Stringer. Do you know who George Stringer is?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘He’s a Labour MP. And he’s standing for the local elections. He’s probably going to win.’ I nod. He continues... ‘You’re an exceptional officer, Razors. You’re the main reason that we’re one of the best performing boroughs in the Met. I’m indebted to you for that.’ He leans forwards and cuts off my thousand-mile stare. ‘... But you can’t make obscene gestures to members of the public. That is unacceptable. It puts me in a very difficult position. If it was any other officer I’d have them transferred, if not require them to resign.’

  He holds my stare. I have to say something. We’ll be here forever if I don’t. Mr Maple is actually a good bloke. An old-school copper. He’s got me off the hook more than once. ‘You don’t reckon you could sell it as a wave?’

  ‘What does this mean to you, Razors?’ Mr Maple holds out his loosely clenched fist and waves it at me. His voice has turned stern and his face white. I need to be careful here.

  ‘It means you’re calling me a wanker, sir.’

  ‘Well that’s what George bloody Stringer did to me an hour ago!’

  I turn my head briefly to stifle a creeping smile.

  Mr Maple regains his composure and says, ‘I had to play the welfare card to save you. I had to bring up your past–’

  ‘My past is irrelevant,’ I say sharply. ‘It does not influence anything I do.’

  ‘It was best resolution available. You w
ill see occupational health.’

  ‘That will be a waste of time and money.’

  ‘Then in future don’t call an MP a wanker and then drive straight into a police station!’

  I nod. ‘Sorry, sir–’

  ‘And in a squad vehicle, too! I credited you with more intelligence than that, Razors. You will not use police vehicles, marked or unmarked, for personal use again. Is that clear?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  When I get home at about eight o’clock, I open my front door and see an unusual letter on my mat. Almost all of my mail arrives at the beginning of the month – bills, statements, etc. It’s the middle of the month and this A4 envelope is simply addressed to ‘Kane’. It was delivered by hand. I carry the letter into the lounge, switch on the box, and stare at the four letters, written in red felt pen. Everything has a meaning. This is meant to alarm me, grab my attention, warn me of something. Kane’s my real name, but no one calls me by it. I open the letter and withdraw the A4-sized piece of plain paper, on which is written the following:

  STOP WRITING JOURNAL.

  3

  Bubble bath works on a psychological level. It can’t really ‘relax muscles’. How does it access them? Regardless, I enjoy a bath more when I share it with said product. Bubble bath rocks. And it feels nice on the old chap.

  This bath is too small. Width-wise it’s fine – I’m a broad-shouldered bloke, but I keep within the sides. It’s my ankles and toes − I have to elevate my legs and rest my feet beside the taps. A trivial matter, some might say, but it’s one of my top gripes, and one that’s caused me to fork out a few grand for an extension. A few people reckon that’s impulsive, irrational, and epitomises my eccentricity, but after the shifts I put in I need time to relax, and bathing is my favourite pastime.

  The tapping has definitely stopped. I’ve beaten it, just as you can beat that high-pitched shrill in your ears by willing it to stop. The tapping started a couple of weeks ago, seemingly emanating from somewhere in the house. It sounded like a hammer lightly hitting a screw, but a little duller. I searched the entire house, but couldn’t find the source. At the point of fury, I realised it had to be in my head, so I concentrated hard and after a few days managed to expel it. Makes me wonder, though, why I’m subconsciously wanting to self-destruct.