Most of would probably say that loyalty is a good quality. Certainly we want our friends to be loyal to us; we want to know that there are certain people who can be counted on no matter what happens. And loyalty really is important in a lot of ways. But is it possible for loyalty to be taken too far? Are there times when one should not be loyal? It’s a tricky question actually, which makes it also a very interesting one. Little wonder it’s explored in crime fiction as much as it is.
Loyalty plays an important role in Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express. Wealthy American businessman Samuel Ratchett is stabbed on the second night of his journey across Europe on the famous Orient Express. Hercule Poirot is on the same train and agrees to look into the case. He soon finds that Ratchett has a hidden past that has, as the saying goes, came back to haunt him. Poirot also discovers that the only possible suspects are the other passengers whose compartments are in the same coach as Ratchett’s. So Poirot gets to know the different passengers and in his own unique way, gets them to talk about themselves and their backgrounds. As the novel goes on Poirot finds out how much of what the suspects tell him is true and how much is not. Here’s a bit of the conversation that ensues when Poirot confronts one suspect with the fact that that suspect has lied:
“‘In fact, you deliberately lied to us…’ [Poirot]
‘Certainly. I would do the same again…I believe, Messieurs, in loyalty – to one’s friends and one’s family and one’s caste.’”
As it turns out, that sense of loyalty has everything to do with this particular murder.
In Christianna Brand’s Green For Danger, Inspector Cockrill is called to Heron’s Park military hospital when postman Joseph Higgins dies there during what’s supposed to be routine surgery. At first it looks as though Higgins’ death was a tragic accident as sometimes happens during surgery. So everyone thinks Cockrill’s main role will be to file the official “accident” paperwork. But then, Sister Marion Bates has too much to drink at a party and blurts out that she knows Higgins was murdered and that furthermore, she knows how it was done. Later that night she herself is murdered. Now it’s clear that Higgins’ death was no accident, so Cockrill looks more deeply into the case. He finds that there are only six people who could have killed both Higgins and Bates, so his focus is on those suspects as he investigates. When Cockrill discovers exactly how Higgins was murdered he also finds out who the killer was. In this novel, you could argue that in a sense, Higgins was killed partly out of loyalty. It’s also fair to say that loyalty plays a role in hampering Cockrill’s investigation.
In Margaret Truman’s Murder at the FBI, we meet special agent Christine Saksis. When fellow agent George Pritchard is murdered at the FBI’s Washington DC headquarters, Saksis and her partner Ross Lizenby are tapped to investigate the murder. They have to move very carefully on this case because one of the most important things that the FBI drums into its employees is “Don’t embarrass the bureau.” One theory of the case is that Pritchard was murdered by a terrorist group whose membership he was going to reveal. It’s a credible explanation too and Saksis and Lizenby are under an awful lot of pressure to pursue it. But little by little other possibilities arise, including the fact that Pritchard was going to reveal some ugly secrets at the agency itself. As the investigation goes on Saksis finds herself with very conflicting loyalties. She is proud to be an FBI agent and is loyal to the agency. At the same time the more she learns about this case the more she questions that loyalty. It’s an interesting look at the role loyalty plays in the way people think.
Stephen J. Cannell’s The Tin Collectors also gives readers a look at loyalty within a group; in this case it’s the L.A.P.D. Homicide detective Shane Scully gets a call one night from Barbara Molar, the wife of Scully’s former cop partner Ray Molar. Barbara is frantic because she’s afraid her husband is about to kill her. Scully rushes to the Molar home where he confronts Molar. Molar fires at Scully but misses. Scully’s return bullet hits its mark and soon enough Scully finds himself the target of an internal investigation led by prosecutor Alexa Hamilton. Although Ray Molar was in reality a brutal man who abused his wife and his authority as a cop, he was also beloved on the police force; he was considered a “cop’s cop” who mentored several of the newer cops. So right away Scully becomes a pariah. It’s soon clear too that the “Powers That Be” are not going to treat Molar’s killing as a “typical” internal investigation. Scully learns that the department is angling to have him charged with murder. In order to protect himself, Scully starts asking questions to find out why he’s becoming the department’s fall guy. He soon learns that Molar was involved in several things that the department “higher ups” want kept quiet. In this novel, there’s quite a lot of discussion of loyalty, both to the force and to Molar.
Loyalty to the force is also a major theme of Y.A. Erskine’s The Brotherhood. The Tasmania police force is rocked when one of its members Sergeant John White is stabbed while he’s investigating a break-in/robbery. The most likely suspect in the case is Darren Rowley, a part-Aboriginal teenager who’s been in and out of trouble with the law for a long time. Everyone says that John White was a true “good guy” – a dedicated cop who stayed “clean” and mentored many, many younger officers. Everyone loved him and all of the other members of the force are devastated by his murder. We see this murder and its after-effects from several perspectives, including those of White’s friend DI Richard Moore, who’s investigating the death; probationer Lucy Howard, who was with White at the break-in scene when he was killed; police commissioner Ron Chalmers, who has to handle the investigation at the “higher-up” level; and Constable Cameron Walsh, for whom White was a mentor. Loyalty plays a critical role in the way these people see both White and Darren Rowley, and in the way people on the force deal with the investigation, with Rowley’s lawyer, with the press and with the public. We also see it in the way the various members of the police force see the justice system that seems to them to be rigged in favour of criminals.
Family loyalty is another important kind of loyalty and we see that in action if you will in Martin Clark’s The Legal Limit. In that novel, brothers Gates and Mason Hunt are coming home after a late night one night when they encounter Gates’ romantic rival Wayne Thompson. Gates Hunt already had a confrontation earlier in the day with Thompson and now the argument heats up again and almost before anyone realises what’s happening, Gates Hunt has shot Thompson. Mason feels a strong sense of loyalty to his brother because of the way his brother protected him from their abusive father when they were younger. So he helps his brother cover up the crime. Life goes on for both brothers and Mason Hunt becomes a successful commonwealth prosecutor for Patrick County, Virginia. Then Gates Hunt is arrested for cocaine trafficking and given a long sentence. He begs his brother to help him get out of prison but Mason refuses. Gates Hunt has squandered every opportunity he had, and Mason refuses to bail him out any more. So Gates threatens to implicate his brother in the Wayne Thompson shooting if Mason won’t use his “pull” to free him from prison. When Mason refuses again, Gates makes good on his threat and Mason Hunt finds himself charged with murder. Now he’ll have to find a way to clear his name and outwit his brother’s legal team if he’s to avoid being imprisoned himself.
Loyalty can be a powerful and positive trait. It colours our perceptions and often, our actions. It’s not always a clear-cut force for good, but it’s most definitely a force to be reckoned with, as the saying goes.
*NOTE: The title of this post is the title of a Pretenders’ song.
I really like the concept of loyalty on the force amongst the police officers. Even if they know another officer is doing something wrong, they will stand up for each other. Sometimes it backfires but still, it can be an interesting read. Nice subject.
Clarissa – Thank you
– glad you enjoyed the post. You’re right that cops do stick by each other, even if they know another officer is doing something wrong. As you say, that can have negative, even horrible consequences. Loyalty in that sense has been used to cover up corruption, police brutality and more. But that loyalty also leads cops to save each other’s lives and have each other’s back as the saying goes.
Loyalty amongst the police can go both ways. There is the natural alliance of associates working in a dangerous profession – remember McBain’s ‘Cop Hater’ where police are appalled by the killings of one of their own. However intense loyalty can lead to covering up police mistakes and encourage corruption – for example Y A Erskine’s ‘The Brotherhood’
Sarah – Oh, I’m glad you brought up Cop Hater. Among other things it certainly is a powerful look at police loyalty and how that impacts the way cops see things. But as you say, if loyalty is taken too far, then this can lead to covering things up, including corruption. And yes, The Brotherhood shows how that can happen.
I have just read a couple of books about loyalty within a country’s police force (and secret police organisations within it) being taken to far — by Leif G W Persson. The first one, Between Summer’s Longing and Winter’s End is a hard slog (took me two attempts) but the second, Another Time, Another Life, is excellent. Very dark and cynical and carrying on the criticisms of police “loyalty” begun by Sjowall and Wahloo, which became an increasing theme of their series as it went on.
Yes, loyalty is good but the kind of loyalty in books like these and, as you point out, The Brotherhood, makes you wonder. There seem to be quite a lot of real-life crime/police cases in which innocent people have been imprisoned, partly due to incompetence but also due to misplaced loyalty by institutions such as the police, who can rely on their groupthink-rules to keep themselves corrupt!
Maxine – Oh, yes! I remember your excellent review of Another Time, Another Place. And you’re absolutely right. Loyalty is an important character trait, and cops really do need to depend on each other. But when that loyalty means that cops cover up corruption, then it can actually be a dangerous force. There are as you point out a lot of cases out there where innocent people are in jail because of the way police stand by each other no matter what. Exactly how much loyalty is too much loyalty isn’t perhaps easy to pinpoint. But yes indeed there is a point when loyalty can be taken too far.
Yes I was going to point out some real life cases Maxine but I thought I would stick to fiction! There are plenty of examples in the UK of at best misplaced loyalty in the police and at worst, well corruption.
It’s exactly the same in the US, Sarah.
Eek, I thought this loyalty post was a great post and was interesting. I was going to say, what happens when you have conflicting loyalties? An interesting situation arises for the person in the middle.
The eek came when the comments seemed to turn into a police bashing session. Yes, there absolutely is corruption in the police service, as well as other services, but that is the minority. The majority of cops are there because they care and because they want to catch the bad guys. The genuine bad guys and they put so much of themselves into doing that. These cops don’t like corrupt cops and won’t cover up for them. Isn’t that what we love in a crime novel? The protagonist putting themselves all out to do this?
Rebecca – You make a very good point that most police officers are hard-working people who want to, as you put it, catch the bad guys. They care about doing a good job and they don’t like corruption and cover-ups any more than any of us do. I’m glad you said that because it’s easy to forget it when there’s a headline-grabbing story about cops who cover up fellow cops’ transgressions, or cops who’ve “gone dirty.” And yes indeed, it makes for a terrific story when the protagonist puts him/herself “out there.” I just love that for instance about Michael Connelly’s Harry Bosch. He does that and does whatever it takes.
And you’re right that it can indeed be interesting when a person has conflicting loyalties. For instance, you’re making me think of a character in Agatha Christie’s Dead Man’s Folly who knows (or at least suspects) who the killer is, but has such torn loyalties about it that that character says nothing about that knowledge throughout nearly all of the book. You know, that’s an interesting topic for a post – torn loyalties. I must think on that – thanks
Got to agree with Rebecca. Of course one can find evidence of corruption in the police, but it is not endemic. One of the headline cases of wrongful imprisonment in recent years was the case of Barry George, who was accused of murdering TV presenter Jill Dando. Looking at it now, it looks more like everyone (Police, Judiciary and especially the public) was so desperate for the crime to be solved that they allowed themselves to convinced by very flimsy evidence. Indeed, when the case was overturned and the innocent man freed, one could not help thinking that if the police had been really corrupt they would have manufactured for more compelling evidence than they actually had. To tie it into your original comment, Dando was one of the presenters of BBC’s CRIMEWATCH show, and I suspect that a lot of coppers felt a certain loyalty to her, since she spent a lot of time boosting the police. In this case that loyalty led to an injustice.
The murder of Rachel Nickell on Wimbledon Common is another terrible case in point, in the UK.
Maxine – I heard about that sad case. And the after-effects, because of the rush for a conviction, were so dreadful for everyone…
Skywatcher – Thanks for sharing that story. I’d heard bits of it but not all of the details. It does show how much pressure there can be on the police to get a conviction, especially when the victim was popular or garnered a lot of sympathy. Perhaps one could say that in this case, it wasn’t really a matter of corruption; rather, it was the unremitting pressure, especially the public pressure, to catch the killer. And it’s entirely possible that Dando’s loyalty to the police and support for them made the cops that much more motivated to find the person who killed her.
Barbara Fister addresses these issues in In the Wind, where her police detective has blown a whistle but has felt obliged to leave the force because she can’t rely on her partners to back her up. She’s trying to make a go of it as a PI, but it is hard when she has to interact with the cops and everyone has it in for her.
Maxine – Thanks for that reminder of In the Wind. It’s such a good example of the kind of point Rebecca’s making about “the good guys” who are willing to turn in cops who’ve gone bad. As you say, it takes a lot of courage and such people obviously don’t get any help from their former colleagues.
This is a hard topic. In mystery fiction, it can be interesting. If someone in law enforcement breaks rank and either tells of police corruption or brutality or turns against others, it can be a good plot device. In real life, it’s something else.
In my city, this closing rank, the “blue wall of silence” is a problem when there’s police brutality. In 1997, Haitian immigrant Abner Louima was brutally beaten in a stationhouse bathroom. He had to have three operations and spend 2 months in a hospital. He sued the city and won a good-sized settlement, thus setting up educational help for children in Haiti. The main cop who beat him was sentenced to 30 years in jail. (He had bragged about what he did). Others involved did not go to jail.
However, the police all closed rank about what happened.
This kind of thing happens here.
So, I’d rather stick to fiction and have it not happen in real life.
Kathy – Oh, yes! I remember the Louima case quite well. You are so right that the ranks closed as it were on that case. It’s an appalling example of what happens when closing ranks goes too far. Such things do sadly happen. Most cops though try to do their jobs well and they don’t fall in with corruption. That’s one reason that such horrible cases as the Louima case get the press they get.
You’re right though; when someone breaks ranks it can create tension in a story and add to a plot. In real life the thought of someone having to break ranks to do the right thing is horrible…