Like A Charm [anthology]

Bad cop. I suppose, in a relative way.

So I watched while Cameron harassed Kelly Key. It was late morning, but she was already dressed in her hooker outfit. I could see a lot of leg and a lot of cleavage. She wasn't dumb enough to offer anything off her own bat, but she was heavily into doing the Sharon Stone thing from Basic Instinct. She was crossing and uncrossing her legs so fast I could almost feel the disturbance in the air. Cameron was enjoying the interview. And the actual view, I suppose. I could see that. He was totally at his ease. He had the upper hand, so definitively it was just an absolute fact. He was a big man, fleshy and solid in that classic police-man way. He was probably forty-something, although it's hard to be precise with guys who have that sort of tight pink flesh on their faces. But he had his size, and his badge, and his years in, and together they made him invulnerable. Or together they had, so far.

Then Mason Mason was brought in. We still had an hour of fun to go with Kelly, but we heard a disturbance at the front desk. Mason Mason had been arrested for urinating in public. At that time we called the uniformed coppers woollies, because of their wool uniforms, and on the face of it the woollies could handle public urination on their own, even if they wanted to push the charge upwards towards gross indecency. But Mason Mason had been searched and found with a little more folding money in his pocket than street people usually carry. He had £90 on him, in new tenners. So the woollies brought him to us, in case we might want to try a theft charge, or mugging, or even robbery with violence, because maybe he had pushed someone around to get the cash. It might be a slam-dunk. The woollies weren't dumb. They knew how we balanced clearance rate with productivity, and they were self-interested too, because although individual detectives competed among themselves, there was also an overall station number, which helped everybody. There was a number for everything.

So at that point Cameron put Kelly Key on the back burner and Mason Mason on the front. He took me aside to explain a few things. First, Mason Mason was the guy's actual name. It was on his birth certificate. It was widely believed that his father had been drunk or confused or both at the Registry Office and had written Mason in both boxes, first name and surname. Second, Mason wasn't pissing in public because he was a helpless drunk or derelict. In fact, he rarely drank. In fact, he was pretty harmless. The thing was, although Mason had been born in Tottenham – in a house very near the Spurs ground – he believed he was American, and believed he had served in the United States Marine Corps, as part of Force Recon, who called themselves the Snake Eaters. This, Cameron said, was both a delusion and an unshakeable conviction. North London was full of dedicated Elvis impersonators, and country and western singers, and Civil War re-enactors, and Omaha Beach buffs, and vintage Cadillac drivers, so Mason's view of himself wasn't totally extraordinary. But it led to awkwardness. He believed that the North London streets were in fact part of the ruined cityscape of Beirut, and that to step into the rubble and take a leak against the shattered remains of a building was all part of a Marine's hard life. And he was always collecting insignias and badges and tattoos. He had snake tattoos all over his body, including one on his chest, along with the words Don't Tread On Me.

After absorbing all this information I glanced back at Mason and noticed that he was wearing a single snake earring, in his left ear. It was a fat little thing, all in heavy gold, quite handsome, quite tightly curled. It had a tiny gold loop at the top, with a non-matching silver hook through it that went up and through his pierced lobe.

Cameron noticed it, too.

'That's new,' he said. 'The Snake Eater's got himself another bauble.'

Then his eyes went blank for a second, like a TV screen changing channels.

I should have seen it coming.

He sent Kelly Key away to sit by herself and started in on Mason. First he embarrassed him by asking routine questions, starting with a request that he should state his name.

'Sir, the Marine's name is Mason, sir,' the guy said, just like a Marine.

'Is that your first or last name?'

'Sir, both, sir,' the guy said.

'Date of birth?'

Mason reeled off day, month, year. It put him pretty close to what I guessed was Cameron's age. He was about Cameron's size, too, which was unusual for a bum. Mostly they waste away. But Mason Mason was tall and heavily built. He had hands the size of Tesco chickens and a neck that was wider than his head. The earring looked out of place, all things considered, except maybe in some kind of a pirate context. But I could see why the woollies thought that robbery with violence might fly. Most people would hand over their wad to Mason Mason, rather than stand and fight.

'Place of birth?' Cameron asked.

'Sir, Muncie, Indiana, sir,' Mason said.

The way he spoke told me he was clearly from London, but his faux-American accent was pretty impressive. Clearly he watched a lot of TV and spent a lot of time in the local multiplexes. He had worked hard to become a Marine. His eyes were good, too. Flat, wary, expressionless. Just like a real jarhead's. I guessed he had seen Full Metal Jacket more than once.

' Muncie, Indiana,' Cameron repeated. 'Not Tottenham? Not North London?'

'Sir, no sir,' Mason barked. Cameron laughed at him, but Mason kept his face blank, just like a guy who had survived boot camp.

'Military service?' Cameron asked.

'Sir, eleven years in God's own Marine Corps, sir.'

'Semper Fi?'

'Sir, roger that, sir.'

'Where did you get the money, Mason?'

It struck me that when a guy has the same name first and last, it's impossible to come across too heavy. For instance, suppose I said hey, Ken, to Cameron? I would sound friendly. If I said hey, Cameron, I would sound accusatory. But it was all the same to Mason Mason.

'I won the money,' he said. Now he sounded like a sullen Londoner.

'On a horse?'

'On a dog. At Harringay.'

'When?'

'Last night.'

'How much?'

'Ninety quid.'

'Marines go dog racing?'

'Sir, Recon Marines blend in with the local population.' Now he was a jarhead again.

'What about the earring?' Cameron asked. 'It's new.'

Mason touched it as he spoke.

'Sir, it was a gift from a grateful civilian.'

'What kind of civilian?'

'A woman in Kosovo, sir.'

'What did she have to be grateful about?'

'Sir, she was about to be a victim of ethnic cleansing.'

'At whose hands?'

'The Serbs, sir.'

'Wasn't it the Bosnians?'

'Whoever, sir. I didn't ask questions.'

'What happened?' Cameron asked.

'There was social discrimination involved,' Mason said. 'People considered rich were singled out for special torment. A family was considered rich if the wife owned jewellery. Typically the jewellery would be assembled and the husband would be forced to eat it. Then the wife would be asked if she wanted it back. Typically she would be confused and unsure of the expected answer. Some would say yes, whereupon the aggressors would slit the husband's stomach open and force the wife to retrieve the items herself.'

'And you prevented this from happening?'

'Me and my men, sir. We mounted a standard fire-and-manoeuvre encirclement of a simple dwelling and took down the aggressors. It was a modest household, sir. The woman owned just a single pair of earrings.'

'And she gave them to you.'

'Just one, sir. She kept the other one.'

'She gave you an earring?'