Broken Homes

ordinary criminals. It’s the same with all the other criminals, the weekend shoplifters, the drunk drivers, the overexcited protestors and executives who pop into the loo for a quick snort. When it’s their stuff that goes walkies, or their car that’s damaged, when their kids go missing and their briefcases get snatched, they all seem to be pretty consensual about the police. Everyone consents to the police. It’s just the operational priorities they argue about.
    That’s why ninety-nine per cent of the time a pair of police can expect to approach a bunch of thugs with perfect safety, protected only by the majesty of the law, the social contract and the strong implication that anyone messing with you will face unprecedented levels of grief in the very near future.
    It’s the other one per cent that buggers you every time.
    It started quite well, though, with me and Lesley non-chalantly strolling into the farmyard smiling brightly.
    ‘Hello,’ said Lesley in a cheery voice. ‘We’re the police – can anyone help us?’
    There were two of them in the yard, both white, in their late twenties, both dressed in army surplus combat trousers and khaki jackets. One of them had squinty eyes and wore a bush hat, the other had a round pink face and floppy blond hair.
    Squinty Eyes was climbing out of the Asbo, which he’d obviously just hotwired and driven into the farmyard. Pink Face was holding the gate open for an incredibly muddy Range Rover – I thought there might be more than one person inside, but the details were obscured by the glare off the windscreen.
    ‘What do you want?’ asked Pink Face.
    ‘Do any of you own a white Transit van?’ asked Lesley and ran off the licence plate from memory.
    Pink Face looked at Squinty Eyes who looked at whoever was in the Range Rover and then past me at something behind me. It was all the warning I needed. Emerging from the back door of the bungalow was yet another white guy in combat trousers and jacket, only this one also had a double-barrelled shotgun and as he walked towards us, he raised it to his shoulder.
    From an ordinary policing point of view the best way to deal with firearms is to be outside the operational perimeter while SCO19, the armed wing of the Metropolitan Police, shoot the person with a gun. The second best way is to deal with the weapon before it gets pointed at you.
    I cast a simple impello on the shotgun and yanked the twin barrels straight up before he had a chance to take aim. There was a double boom as he involuntarily squeezed both triggers and then I dropped the butt on his face. The man squealed, let go of the stock and staggered back clutching his nose.
    I glanced around to see how Lesley was doing, and caught sight of a slim figure in a charcoal-grey trouser suit climb out of the Range Rover. Nightingale has been training us to cast certain spells practically by reflex, and as soon as I recognised her I had my shield up. It saved my life, because the next instant I was struck by a freight train full of icicles.
    The impact cartwheeled me off my feet and I saw sky blue and frost white whirl around my head and then I hit the ground on my back hard enough to make my vision dim. I tried to get up, but what was unmistakably a boot crashed down on my chest and drove me back onto the ground.
    Above me loomed the man with the shotgun, his nose was crooked and beginning to swell and blood was seeping from one of his nostrils. He’d retrieved his shotgun and had the business end pointing at my head. It was possible he hadn’t had a chance to reload, but strangely I didn’t feel at all tempted to find out.
    Varvara Sidorovna’s face appeared above and looked down at me. When she saw me, she sighed and muttered something under her breath in Russian. Then she walked out of my view, her muttering getting louder until she was swearing noisily.
    I was struck by what a good language Russian was for swearing in – very expressive.

17
Prisoners of War
    D og fighters don’t see themselves as criminals at all. They see themselves as upholders of a fine rural tradition that dates back centuries and has been unfairly penalised by sanctimonious urbanites. They don’t fight their dogs for the money – although the betting can be brisk and the stud fees lucrative – they fight them for honour, for ego and for the sheer thrill of the combat. The rules of a proper dog fight were codified in the 1830s. The ring is always a square with sides twelve feet