White, living in Muswell Hill and in his 50s, it seems Richard is a shoo-in for the job. 36 years of service, a mixed marriage for the diversity card, schmoozing with all the right people, the only fly in the ointment is the return of his son Luke from a year AWOL after an incident at work. For he’s a copper too and after shooting a black unarmed teenager dead, has suffered something of a breakdown. With the inquest fast approaching, he’s threatening to smash through the party line with his own version of events even if doing so would ruin his father’s prospects.
Michael Jackson once sang that “it don’t matter if you’re black or white” but in a society that has never really managed to come to terms with its multiculturalism, it’s much more complicated than that. Gupta looks at the shades of grey inbetween right and wrong – even if Luke were guilty of something more than an accident, could not the potential benefit of his father’s appointment to a position of real influence not outweigh that? And that a racial epithet taunting Luke’s mixed-race heritage may have triggered the shooting further complicates the tangle of race relations that lies at the heart of so much tension.