He Kills Coppers [Paperback]

Jake Arnott's He Kills Coppers opens in August 1966 when the feel-good factor is running high as England enjoys World Cup victory and a seemingly endless summer. But the sunshine brings some nasty creatures out, and the brutal slaying of three policemen in a west London street sends shockwaves right to the heart of the nation. For three men, the killing is more than a front-page outrage. For Billy Porter, a war-time hero turned petty thief, it's a plan that went fatally wrong. For Frank Taylor, a Detective Sergeant trying to climb the Met's career ladder without resorting to corruption, it's a bereavement--the loss of a loyal comrade which must be avenged. For Tony Meehan, cub reporter on the Sunday Illustrated, it's nothing more than a fortuitous scoop that assures him his job. But reporting the crime awakens sinister urges that he's unable to resist and soon Meehan is creating his own news. Three men who've never met; three lives inextricably linked, in a chain of events that changed history.

Those who raved about Arnott's debut novel The Long Firm will not be disappointed by its successor, a tale combining the tension of a hard-boiled crime thriller with a Dickensian eye for detail. The sounds and the spirit of 60s London are evoked with almost filmic precision, while the plot advances in that swift, inexorable fashion of the very best myths. A few of its peripheral characters, such as Jeannie, the whore with the conscience ("I never want to rely on bad money again"), and Mooney the Masonic vice-cop ("Through the Mysteries of the Craft you can keep yourself clean"), might be slightly clichéd, but the principal trio of narrators is vivid and utterly convincing. For a story that combines morality, the authentic whiff of Soho sleaze and a plot that goes straight for the jugular, readers need look no further. --Matthew Baylis --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

'Brilliant ... you won't be able to put it down.' (Mark Sanderson, Sunday Telegraph Summer Reading )

'Many thought that Jake Arnott's debut, 'The Long Firm', was good but not quite as good as the hype tried to convince us it was. Frankly, Hemingway, Hammett and Greene together would have been hard pressed to come up with anything that good. His eagerly awaited follow-up, 'He Kills Coppers', has arrived - and it's better.' (Time Out )

'Compelling ... Arnott is a writer of many shades and, as in his debut, The Long Firm, shows his penchant for combining challenging storylines with strong storytelling.' (Max Davidson, Sunday Telegraph )

'Arnott is a craftsman at what he does, a real cabinetmaker of pulp fiction, with everything nicely dovetailed’ (Sunday Times )

'Intoxicating' (Scotland on Sunday )

'Propels Arnott further into a league of his own' (Independent on Sunday )

'Brilliant' (Literary Review )

'Easily as good, if not better, than the superb Long Firm ... A stylish tour-de-force' (Big Issue )

'Propels Arnott further into a league of his own'

'Intoxicating... brings together the crisis over contemporary working class masculinity... viewed through the lens of... London's criminal underworld'

'You close the book convinced by the pervasive sense of sleaze and blackly amused'

'This is a fine piece of work that can only increase Arnott's reputation further.'

'Skilful blending of fact and fiction...brilliant and plausible'

'Arnott is a master plotter and the twists and turns are always unexpected.'

'The Long Firm was brilliant, but the follow-up is even better'

'Intoxicating'

August 1966, the long hot summer of World Cup euphoria is suddenly shattered by a brutal crime that shocks a nation seemingly at ease with itself. Three characters' fates are irrevocably bound up with this event and consequences that reverberate across three decades. An ambitious detective dragged into intrigues of corruption. A gutter press journalist with a nose for a nasty story. And a disaffected petty criminal pushed over the edge by a violent crime that haunts him. An epic story that looks at morality and corruption on both sides of the law and at the very heart of the state.

'I heard it the first time on an unruly demo in the early '80s - a strange sing-song chant - Harry Roberts is our friend, he kills coppers. Something eerie about it, like a malevolent nursery rhyme. It had come from the terraces and had been taken up by anarchists and the Class War mob in an attempt to bolster their rather unconvincing butch prole image and to taunt the hated enemy - the police. The police themselves seemed rather too willing to take on their role as Thatcher's Boot Boys, all tooled up in riot gear, raring to go. What had happened? Political action seemed to have degenerated into badly organised scraps with the police. Public order had become paramilitary. And who was this friend of ours who had killed coppers?

As I read up on the facts I found out that he wasn't some politically motivated urban guerrilla or righteous class warrior. He was something more interesting than that. His story took me back to the jungles of Malaya in the '50s, Britain's own kind of Vietnam. And a Travis Bickle type veteran of a colonial war, a bomb trained to kill by the State, de-mobbed into alienation.

Three unarmed police officers were gunned down in 1966, during the high summer of England's World Cup victory, a shattering moment that reverberated over the years into mythology. I've used fact and fiction to create a modern fable and I saw some sort of morality tale emerge, not just of individuals but of society at large.

Another starting point was the Evening Standard headline for July 1 1966 - 'CLEAN UP FOR WORLD CUP'. Detective Chief Inspector Nipper Read had put together a squad of detectives to clean up vice in the West End ready for the tourists coming in for the World Cup. I saw a story here too - like the beginning of Measure for Measure where the Duke of Vienna orders a clean up of the city only to see those charged with protecting public morality themselves corrupted.

I wanted to look at corruption generally. The scandals and the cover-ups in the Met in the '70s. Corruption in the press too, that feeds our own prurient interest in nasty stories. How individual characters get corrupted, how can we can all get tainted.

Throughout the book we see how, and maybe why, the image of the police has gone from confidence to ambivalence, right up to the '80s when they were cynically co-opted by the State to put down the 'Enemy Within' - heavying into industrial action, inner city unrest and subcultural dissent.

And a chant echoes down the decades. The song of a cop killer on the run, like a folk tale or mystery play. A fugitive soul who becomes uneasily familiar, implicating the world that created him. He is our friend. He kills coppers.'

Jake Arnott, March 2001

Jake Arnott was born in Buckinghamshire in 1961. He has worked as a labourer, a mortuary technician, a theatrical agent's assistant, an artist's life model and a sign language interpreter as well as enjoying many fruitful periods of unemployment. His acting experience has included work on the Fringe in London, Edinburgh and Toronto as well as improvised comedy. He is the author of two other novels, THE LONG FIRM and TRUECRIME.

Billy's hand rested against the trunk of a tree. The tree was damp. He felt along the ridges of bark. Damp. Warm. He sniffed his fingers. They smelt of piss. Human piss. He looked down. At the base of the tree wet moss bubbled. He turned to the men behind him. A four-man Reconnaissance Patrol. Tony Wardell, Ronnie Allen, Chin Ho, their SEP tracker, and himself. Billy Porter, Service Number 32265587. Acting Corporal, Section Leader. Lance Jack. Not bad for a conscript. Drafted into National Service straight from Youth Detention. 1st Battalion of the Queen's Own Royal West Kent Regiment. Basic Training at Mill Hill and Canterbury. He found the discipline easy compared to borstal. He caught the eyes of the rest of the patrol. Everybody froze. He sniffed again. The sharp tang of urine cut through the funk of jungle humidity and he caught something else in his nostrils. A whiff of exhaled smoke. The unmistakable smell of Chinese cigarettes. After Basic Training they were shipped out. Malaya. The Emergency. Anti-terrorist operations. Jungle bashing. Stationed at Kuala Kubu Bharu. Taken up-country in Whirlwind helicopters. Fighting Patrols secured rubber plantations and cut into the jungle to set up ambushes against Communist Terrorists. CT. The Charlie Toms. Bandits. Seek out and destroy. They were on a four-day op in the Selangor valley. The Assault Group had sent out Reconnaissance Patrols to track down a CT camp in the area, fanning out into the jungle like the fingers of a hand. A Recce Patrol was supposed to avoid contact with the enemy, seek information and report back to the main patrol. But they had to be ready for anything. Billy was Patrol Leader. He had to decide what to do. He leaned up against the piss-stained tree and gently pulled a vine to one side to look beyond. Three bandits were sat in a clearing, sharing a cigarette. Their rifles in their laps, they talked in singsong voices. He turned to the rest of the patrol and gave hand signals. A thumbs-down sign meant CT. He then held up three fingers. If they withdrew now their movement might alert the bandits. They were so bloody close. If they started firing they could disclose the presence of the whole Assault Force. He only had seconds to decide what to do. He gave the sign for Immediate Ambush. A hand placed over his face. Immediate Ambush. This drill is designed to deal with an ideal situation, when there is no problem in gaining the initiative but rather one of making the best use of such an initiative. It is a drill which depends on a very high standard of discipline and training _ and the ideal circumstances. Given these factors the killing potential is extremely high. He pointed to where the bandits were. Tony and Ronnie moved slowly and silently into position. Tony crouched low and brought his .303 up to his shoulder. The clearing where the bandits were resting gave them a good killing ground. Ronnie found a standing position, his Owen gun held against his hip. Billy unslung his Sten and slowly and quietly cocked it. This method demands high standards of jungle craft and self-reliance which can only be achieved and maintained by training and rehearsal. It was Chin Ho, the SEP, he was most worried about. He had stayed crouched behind the rest of the group, staring ahead. SEP meant Surrendered Enemy Personnel. Chin Ho had spent nearly fifteen years in the jungle and it had taken its toll. He'd fought the Japanese with the MPAJA until '45, then the British with the Min Yuen until '55, when he had taken amnesty and had been used to hunt down his former comrades. He was a broken man. SEPs often reacted badly during an encounter. There were even cases of them leading troops into ambushes. An Immediate Ambush should be sited only on one side of the CT line of advance to avoid confusion. Billy motioned for Chin Ho to lie flat and got into position himself. The automatic and split-second reaction to a chance encounter must continually be practised again and again under different conditions of terrain and varying circumstances. All three of them had acquired targets and were ready for Billy's signal. The Ambush should have depth. They fired in concentrated bursts, spraying the whole clearing. The CT fell back in spasms as the bullets tore into them. Basic Jungle Warfare Course. Weapons Training. Classification Course Instructional. Shooting on the Classification Range, the Malayan Range, the Jungle Lane Range.

Good instruction and practice – the constant need for shooting practice cannot be overemphasised. If properly taught and coached on the Classification Range, a man will have learned to align quickly and to release the trigger steadily without dwelling on the aim. They ceased firing. Gunshots echoed down the valley towards the Selangor river. The jungle clattered into startled life above them. They moved forward to check the bodies. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.