The Man on the Middle Floor Read online

  ‘Morning, sir.’

  ‘No need for any of that, Tam, we’re old mates. Great to see you. Sorry about the kit, we’ve got a mounted event later on the Mall.’

  Tam was swept up in an awkward bear hug which involved back-patting, until the commissioner took control and nonchalantly perched himself down on the side of his polished desk, adopting the air of an avuncular uncle, head at a sympathetic angle.

  ‘So, Tam, how are things?’

  ‘Well, I feel much better, I’ve had a hell of a lot of physio, and I think my leg is stronger than before the shooting. The tendons have all reattached and I’m ready to go to work. I really feel I can offer something important. “Authentic police work”, I think they called it in the last seminar you sent me on.’

  The commissioner laughed, kindly, then reframed his serious but concerned face and continued. ‘That’s great news, Tam, but how are you? In here?’ He tapped the side of his head and looked at Tam quizzically, as if he was trying to work out the answer to a very complicated problem. It was not a good sign.

  ‘Sir, I’m fine. Honestly. Keen to get back out there.’

  The commissioner used an intake of breath to get up from his casually relaxed position on the desk and go round to the other side and sit back in his capacious armchair. Tam began to seriously consider whether he was on Candid Camera.

  ‘Take a seat, mate.’

  Tam took a breath and began.‘Sir, I really don’t want to take up too much of your time. I don’t want a promotion or a pay rise, I just want to get on with doing what I joined the force to do. I want to make the streets safer and society better for all. You put me where you think I’ll do the most good and I’ll give you a hundred per cent.’

  Tam had rehearsed this several times in his head and was disappointed when his boss’s reaction was a pained expression of regret and a shake of the head.

  ‘That’s the thing, I suppose, Tam – times have changed. You and I came up together and I have a lot of respect for your not wanting to play the game like everyone else. You’re your own man and that’s a brave path to follow. The problem is, these days, who are you or I to say what society should be? Who are we to claim we know better than anyone else what works? That’s the question.’

  Tam thought he’d finished and took another breath ready to speak, grasping for a sensible answer to an incomprehensible statement, but, before he could, the commissioner was off again.

  ‘Tam, our model of copper is outmoded; our time has gone. Do you know how often each week I have representatives in here from every dark corner of the urban sprawl? Last week I had a meeting with an imam from Tooting who was defending the imposition of Sharia law in parts of south London, and I had to listen politely to his request for four more senior Muslim police officers in the area who would look at female abuse through Muslim eyes. Then there was the paedophile rights lawyer who came in with a young man who had yearnings for adolescent blond boys and I was supposed to engage in conversation and be impressed that he didn’t act on them. He just wanted “understanding”, apparently, and to be “a mouthpiece for his community”. It’s a fuck-up out there and you just don’t fit.’

  For a moment Tam thought he had said ‘we just don’t fit’, and then it sank in. He didn’t fit. This wasn’t going well at all.

  ‘Sir,’ he tried, ‘we are the Metropolitan Police Force, the line in the sand between good and bad, the defenders of the weak if you like, and if we’re not sure of our position then who’s going to fill our role? Are you seriously telling me we’re giving up? Chucking in the towel? I don’t fucking believe it. There are people in all these new developing areas of our society who need help and regular police assistance, surely. Our legal system hasn’t changed. Under our statutes you can’t tie your daughter to a bed because she isn’t dressed modestly. Surely we can’t be in the business of pleasing all the people all the time?’

  ‘Of course we aren’t giving up. We’re adapting, and you’re a valuable tool in that process, Tam. While none of us wants you out there on the street risking your life on a daily basis, we do want you in the plan going forward, part of the solution rather than the problem. We all want that. I want you by my side as a liaison co-ordinator. Outreach, with all your years of experience. I want you talking to the kids in schools whose brains are being poisoned; I want you gathering intelligence, bringing a bit of sanity to the situation.’

  ‘You want me in a desk job?’

  ‘We want you where you will be most valuable, most visible to us and to society. This way you’re not just another bobby on the beat, you’re the guy with the intelligence, literally. Someone I can use as a confidant, a wing man—’

  Tam’s feet propelled him to the big door and he struggled to open it before he realised it was on some sort of security buzzer. He nearly kicked it, but squashed his inner adolescent back down, then turned round to look at the man behind the desk whom he’d known since they were both eighteen and full of ideals. He was still talking about the New Society, and didn’t seem to have realised that Tam had moved until he looked up. Surprise and confusion mixed on his face and his speech slowed, until finally he understood the look on Tam’s face and fell silent.

  ‘Mate, come on, be reasonable.’

  Tam stared at him and smiled thinly. He knew he looked furious; he’d never been able to hide his feelings. There was nothing more to say, and he watched as the commissioner reached down and released the door lock using an invisible button somewhere under the desk. Their eyes met and Tam thought he saw regret, and a bit of a mental shrug on the huge frame of this man whom he had once thought of as a brother in arms. The last image of him, mouth hanging slack and open, buttons taking some strain and the braid that wound round his shoulders puckering, was like a snapshot. Who was it who said we don’t remember days, we remember moments? There was nothing for him here.

  ‘Sir, my resignation will be in the post.’

  Tam realised as he said it that no one posted anything these days and that it had probably been noted as another anachronism, but he couldn’t be fucked. He needed a drink.

  He brushed past Lucas and had another embarrassing encounter with a locked door. As it was buzzed open by a now silent receptionist, he was aware that the anger was flowing off him like mist off a mountain. He tried to slam the door behind him but it didn’t slam; it was on a soft-close hinge. Fuck this world and the people who lived in it.

  The pavement was drizzled on, just damp enough to make navigating it treacherous, and the Tube station seemed further away now that he was deflated and emotionally drained. What the fuck was he going to do with himself now? His principles were fast evaporating into a panicked vision of standing outside a dodgy nightclub doing security. He probably couldn’t even get employed to do that, come to think of it. He’d seen the guys outside his local pub and he was pretty sure he was twenty years too old and three feet too narrow for the job.

  Why did he never think things through? They were probably really chuffed to get rid of him. He hadn’t negotiated a redundancy payment, he’d insulted his boss, and generally made an exit which must have satisfyingly confirmed their opinion of him.

  Tam’s head dipped forward as he concentrated on avoiding patches of wet horse-chestnut leaves, always the first hint that autumn was on its way, when suddenly his forward momentum was stopped dead. The pavement in front of him was taken up by a tall man, travelling in the same direction as he was, who was blocking his path with a combination of physical presence and flailing arms. Still staring down, all Tam could see in his path were feet, feet which appeared to be dancing across the fucking local authority paving stones deliberately to disrupt his journey home. It was all he needed. He tried to walk around the guy, but he jumped into his path, on tiptoe. He tried the other side and the bloke did the same thing. It was like some weird rehearsal for a modern ballet, and it wasn’t improving Tam’s mood.

  ‘What the fuck are you doing, mate? I’m trying to get home. Can you get out o
f my way?’

  He got no response, and looked up to try and make sense of what was happening. A young man in his twenties, in a neatly done-up coat, belt tied round his middle, combed and parted hair and a nerdish air, was apparently jumping the cracks in the pavement. His feet were moving surprisingly quickly, but as they had to cover a lot of horizontals he wasn’t making speedy progress. Tam looked left to see if he could step into the road and get round him that way. Buses and taxis, messenger bikes and cyclists sped along inches from the pavement. He was either going to have to knock the idiot over, or pace himself behind him.

  The issues with the locked doors, the weather and the general misery of the day had knocked the stuffing out of Tam, and he decided he didn’t have the energy for a quickstep which would probably culminate in the death of a drunk or a care-in-the-community citizen, or more likely his own demise under the wheels of a bus. He slowed down. It wasn’t as if anything was waiting for him at home. What should have taken three minutes took ten, and the stairs down into Tottenham Court Road Tube station looked perilously steep for a tiptoeing line-avoider. Inwardly shrugging, Tam took the parallel staircase, looking round once to see the guy placing two feet on to each step carefully, brushing down the front of his coat at each descent and carrying on to the next one. Mild fascination was washed away by the thought of a single malt and an episode of Inspector Morse, although it might be a bit masochistic to watch period detective drama tonight. It might have to be porn and a curry.

  Despite his laboured methods of descending a staircase, the bloke from the pavement arrived five minutes later on the same platform, and stood waiting for a train, alone, by a pillar. When they got on to the train Tam could see him in the next carriage through the glass dividing window, sitting balanced on the edge of a seat with his hands in his lap, then reaching into his pocket for a small clear bottle and applying what looked like sanitising lotion to his fingers, one by one. Tam reminded himself he was no longer a detective, closed his eyes, and mentally counted the stops until he reached Waterloo, changed on to the Jubilee line and dozed all the way to Kilburn. When he emerged from under London’s busy crust, the sun was low in the sky and the drizzle had stopped. Although it was only early afternoon, Tam could feel that the warmth in the sun was fading. He knew he should probably pick up some groceries, but he couldn’t summon the energy. He walked up the path to his flat, tiredness wrapped round him now, along with an overwhelming sense of anti-climax. The bins on his right were in a straight line and he tried to remember which day the bin men came now; it seemed to change every couple of months.

  He opened the door of the house and crossed the hall to pick up his post. As usual the letters for the three people who lived in the flats under this Victorian roof had been meticulously put into piles, biggest letters at the bottom, magazines and catalogues below those, everything squared up. In the hall, above the small table that held the post, someone had put up a clock; Tam remembered the same one being in the first police station he’d ever worked in, white plastic with big numbers, and it felt somehow reassuring, something solid on shifting sands. Below it was a small cork noticeboard, completely devoid of notices. A wave of exhaustion came over him. Thank God his flat was on the ground floor. He put the key in the lock and went inside.

  After turning every light on, Tam dropped some ice into a glass and poured from a bottle of Glenfarclas ten-year-old. There wasn’t even enough left to cover the ice. That would be the cleaner; she drank like a fish. At least he could dispense with her now he was out of a job. Tam picked up the phone and rang her number – voicemail. He left a message telling her not to come back, and explained that he’d lost his job … pay it forward. He needed to relax, though, and the off-licence was only down the road, but ‘down the road’ seemed like a challenge. He would see if you could order whisky from Hungry Horse later. Today was a fuck-up, it was official. He would watch porn on his phone, in bed. It was one of the few luxuries left to him. He downed the tablespoonful of whisky, chucked his clothes on the floor, pissed into the sink and walked into the bedroom. He pulled the duvet over him, typed ‘young, hot and horny’ into the search engine and exhaled. The front door slammed and he heard feet going upstairs. Did no one work any more?

  2 | Nick

  ‘As long as habit and routine dictate the pattern of living, new dimensions of the soul will not emerge.’

  — Henry Van Dyke

  Tuesday

  I opened the front door and there they were, in the plastic covers, all my clothes hanging on the hook that Grandpa put up, and my dirty washing was gone. No one knocked on my door on a Tuesday because it wasn’t a visit day; my mother just did drop-and-go. I put them all in the cupboard still in their plastic covers because the covers kept the germs away. I made a sandwich from white bread, and square ham which exactly fitted on the bread, and ketchup which I put on from the squeezy bottle and made into a round and round circle, but not too much or it would come out of the sides when I bit it. I put lettuce on the top, neat Little Gem lettuce which was good for you and didn’t have bits and was the cleanest lettuce I had found so far. It all fitted together and that was lunch. Then I had a yoghurt, I had been saving hazelnut which was my favourite, and then I put it empty in the bin, holding it carefully by the little foil bit which opened it in case the yoghurt went on me. I washed my hands just in case, as yoghurt was alive and could breed, which Mother said was good for your insides but I didn’t want it growing on my skin. I wiped all preparation areas with Dettol antibacterial spray and I was ready to go.

  I got my jacket on not my coat because it would be the afternoon by the time I got to Richmond Park, and I wanted as much air in my lungs and sun on my skin as possible. I knew that there were lots of people in Richmond Park on a sunny day because you could see the bikes and cars, but it was so big that they seemed to be invisible, which I liked. Summer was over, although today was warm and quite sunny. The trees near the house were turning brown and look old, and the ones in the park would soon be bare for the winter and the deer would be rutting which was a word for mating but only with deer, and when they mated they fought and might be dangerous. I sat down for a minute before I set out, to get rid of pictures of rutting and fighting deer from my mind, and then I went out of the flat and closed the door behind me.

  I liked Richmond Park most of all because it was a huge park where you could be on your own and I liked to be as quiet as I could, and watch the deer close up from behind trees. Sometimes they would come so near, one at a time, or a whole group, and if you moved or stepped on a branch they would start running away, sticking together. Deer made venison. That was their meat, and you could buy it but you couldn’t kill the ones in the park. You could go to a forest in Scandinavia and hunt them. I thought that I would like to point a gun and shoot a deer, but today I was going to concentrate on breathing clean air, and I would take off my jacket and get sun on my arms so they were less bobbly. Clear the cobwebs. Down the stairs, up the path, round the corner, down the steps into the Tube one stair at a time, keep away from crowds, sit on the edge of the seat, wipe hands regularly. Up the stairs and out into the air. It wasn’t completely fresh here because this was a high street but I took the first deep breath since going down into the Underground. Even when I got off at East Putney it was such a long walk from the Tube. My body had to be full of nearly fresh air now, and I remembered that lungs only had a certain capacity and they had to be full and I almost turned round and went home, but it wasn’t time.

  Don’t step on the cracks in the pavement, don’t meet anyone’s eye. Get away from the computer and pretend shooting. Toughen up, be a man, stop your snivelling, put your heels on the floor, keep quiet. Tuesdays were always difficult and I pushed Grandpa’s face out of my mind. I stopped and looked up and breathed. Concentrate on the clouds. It’s a coping strategy.

  I did try and explain to Grandpa about why I liked computer gaming, I had been doing it a long time, and it had taken a lot of hours to be as good as me
. I had a high score and if you had practised that much you should use your skills, and the games on the computer could help me if the worst ever happened, maybe more than the correcting. I walked quicker to get away from the thoughts about that.

  When I was little I wanted to join the army but now I thought it would be better to be your own boss, make up your own mind and watch carefully to see who was bad and who was good and anyway Grandpa said that I wouldn’t get in. It was probably because you had to be a team player. I didn’t like teams. I decided not to try in the end because of the recruitment video. You had to always do what you were told and never question it and when people shouted at you even when you tried your best you had to not cry and I didn’t like shouting.

  All this thinking had taken me a long way, and I was nearly at the park. I knew the route really well, and I didn’t have to think about which way to go.

  I could see the gates now and beyond them I was scanning the horizon for herds of deer. There was a small group off to the right in the distance, and I started to stalk them which was in one of my computer games but really it was just following, but with deer not people. There were bushes to crouch behind and you had to have the wind blowing towards you or they might smell you even if you showered a lot. I squatted behind a tree and tried to be as quiet as I could; they were in an opening on the other side of the road that cut the park in two.

  When I’d crossed the road after looking both ways, I decided to practise my crawling on my belly like in my war game because no one was around, but the ground wasn’t dry and now my clothes had dirt on them which didn’t happen in the game. I wanted to rip them off and throw them on the ground. Dirt, germs. They might not wash off. I would put them in a plastic bag and then into the bin when I got home. I was quite close now so I tried not to think about the mud and breathe evenly, think about the deer. I walked instead, looking at the ground: stay on the flat bits, don’t tread on twigs. I managed it, I was behind the tree and they hadn’t moved. One deer, a smallish girl one, was really close, and I was hidden.