by Pete Adams
‘Anything else, Frankie?’
‘Our feeling is this is small, local, and relatively new, which is encouraging.’
Mandy gave Jack a wide berth as she headed to the crime wall. He thought she looked gorgeous, as she went by, just out of reach. ‘Okay, so when Jane’s stopped staring at my arse,’ the team chortled, Jack smiled. ‘Jane and I also feel this is local, but where? Connie, Jack gave you some stuff this morning, Coastguard, air traffic, we may have something to look at?’ She waved at the wall, ‘Nobby, KFC will have pictures of No Man’s Land fort, aerial as well as estate agents pictures; it’s currently for sale. Jo-Jums add this to your list, we need to know if this has legs and if not, bin it quick. Any questions, no, Jane, summary please.’
Jack skipped to the wall, ‘There’s a lot of activity at this fort and our kids may be there,’ an aerial view of No Man’s Land Fort was now up. ‘My instinct is to go in, but we have to build a case. Of course we may be wrong, in which case it was Mandy’s theory,’ and he rolled up in a pantomime laugh. Jo looked at Mandy; Jack was more over the top than normal.
Mandy answered Jo’s looks, ‘Leave Jack to me, any thoughts on the set up?’
Jo reacted, ‘Paolo, your team, if the kids are there how do we get them out? Scenarios as soon as you can. If the kids are there and they disappeared off the social services radar, where are the mothers? Think about that too.’
Mandy and Jack made to leave, Frankie stopped them at the door, ‘The fort has been let on a temporary, renewable licence for the past eighteen months, and was recently renewed for another twelve.’
Mandy responded, ‘Check with the agent, are they allowing interested purchasers to see around?’
Jack was back at his deckchair, ‘Connie does that computer do cinema listings?’ and before he could get to sleep she handed him a sheet of films; he knew she would be good. KFC had six computers now, courtesy of Del-Boy; Jack called it silicone galley. Mandy, tip toed past the deckchair and looked at each screen, two processing information, three others chuntering, one had a fixed aerial image of the fort and a box image in the corner. ‘What’s in the box Frankie?’
‘Spitbank Fort, Del thinks it might be worth monitoring both forts while we’re at it.’
‘Do we need permission?’
‘Ma’am, I get the impression Del-Boy has all the permission he needs.’
Mandy hemmed, Jack stirred, ‘He’s thinking sea and air movements coming in under cover of approved traffic to Spitbank.’
‘You were listening?’
‘Not very good tip toeing Mandy, I could help you there, I used to do ballet as a boy.’
Connie spun, ‘Jack, you ballet dancer?’
‘He’s pulling your leg,’ Mandy replied, enjoying Jack’s exaggerated hurt face.
Frankie worked the oracle, ‘Mandy, we have the plans of the fort. Nobby and Alice have set up a separate board over there,’ she pointed to where they had opened up some of the wonky screens to the Sissies.
‘Alice, Nobby, what are you doing?’
‘We’re looking for areas where prisoners could be held, fastest access routes, and evacuation scenarios,’ Alice replied.
Jack responded, ‘Jo-Jums, keep the Commander and Chief briefed, Mandy and I are going fishing. Frankie, Del-Boy will give you a secure line, satellite cover of the Solent and that sort of stuff, no ship to shore, or mobiles, we have to assume a degree of sophistication,’ amazed eyes focused on Jack. ‘What?’
Sixty-One
‘Heard it was good Friday, apart from Pugwash.’
‘It was Sid, where were you?’ Jack was leaning on the reception counter, Mandy pacing, excited.
‘My daughter’s not well.’
‘Sid, I’m so sorry, can you say?’
‘She found a lump.’
Mandy thought, Oh no Jack is bound to make a joke, but he didn’t, ‘Buzz me through.’ He did, and Jack put his arm around Sid’s shoulder.
Mandy thought she saw a frailty in Sid she’d never seen before.
Jack spoke as soft as he could, so they heard in Australia, ‘I’m sure it’ll be okay, anything you want, just ask,’ and Jack picked-up the phone, nothing.
‘You have to press the button here.’
‘I know that, I was using dramatic irony.’
Mandy and Sid looked at each other, “dramatic irony”? Sid pressed the button.
‘Hello, can you put me through to Brenda please?’ Jack paused, ‘I don’t know her second name, don’t hang up... Sid where’s the switchboard?’
‘Down the corridor turn left, carry on, it’s at the end.’
‘Sid, you’re going home, your wife and daughter need you.’
Sid went to contest, but Jack had already disappeared down the corridor. Mandy and Sid looked at each other; ‘Oh no.’
Jack found the door, ‘Hi, Jane.’
‘Yo, Nylon, who’s answering the dog and bones?’
It was Brian, shortened to Bri, hence Bri-nylon, a material from the sixties only Jack remembered. Mandy was at the door shaking her head, ‘We have a rule not to disturb telecoms during a shift,’ but Nylon made the mistake of looking at the room as he spoke, and Jack went in.
‘Good morning, I’m DCI Jack Austin, who answered the phone just now when I asked for Brenda?’
A comfortably plump woman, short bottle legs that swung on her chair, mid-forties, raised her hand. She had frizzy hair, everything except the blue rinse, but definitely modelled on Margaret Thatcher, blue, knitted jersey suit with a Beatles collar, purple shiny blouse with an enormous bow; Jack took in this vision of Jam and Jerusalem, ‘Your name please?’
‘I am not sure that is important to you, Inspector,’ a confident snotty reply.
Jack brought his body up, the room was claustrophobic and he had assumed a hunch as an involuntary response, ‘That would be Chief Inspector, and if I ask you your name, you tell me,’ calm, but Mandy knew he would blow.
‘Mrs Margery Clements.’
‘Well, Mrs Clements, you are not up the knitting club now. This is a police station and we do serious business here. If I ask you to do something, I do not expect to be questioned. I do not expect to be hung up on. You may think you’re doing your bit, but this ain’t fucking Dunkirk.’ Here it comes, Mandy thought. ‘We need serious people here, not people playing at Watch with Mother.’ He was wound up and everyone, including Mrs Thatcher, knew it. Margery made to reply, his hand stopped her, ‘Well Margery, let me tell you something, Brenda is the PA to the Chief and we have a big operation going on in this nick right now, and because you are so up your own arse, I cannot speak to him on the phone. I don’t give a toss about your Big Society. I don’t give a toss about your sensitivities or Blogg and Mackeroon. If you want this job, paid or not, then do it properly, otherwise get thee to a library woman.’
He turned to go but stopped, Margery looked traumatised, she was going to crack and Jack had not even reached ballistic. Mandy got ready to step in. Jack carried on, ‘Remember me when I phoned in and you would not give me the telephone number of a police officer. You hung up several times.’ She went to speak, but Jack was rising to a crescendo, Mandy edged closer. ‘Shut the fuck-up woman.’ He spent a little time calming himself, straightened his clothes, a gesture to smooth his ruffled inner self, and when he resumed, he was respectfully hushed. ‘The policeman I wanted to get hold of was not in the pub, as you thought all coppers do cause it’s what they do on the telly, he was murdered that night.’ He allowed the shock to get to her, ‘You should know that even if you had managed to get off your fat arse and give me the number, it might not have saved the man, but we will never know that will we?’
Margery burst into tears, mumbling something incomprehensible. Oh Christ, Mandy thought, and what Jack did amazed her, but should not have as it was typical of him. He approached Margery, who seemed to have melted into her chair, crouched and put his arm around her. ‘Now, take a break, smoke a fag if that’s what you do, or go and
inhale some of the passive smoke, which Nylon does nothing about,’ he looked at Nylon sternly. ‘When you’ve got yourself together, let’s start again, and do the job properly. Can you do that for me, Margery?’ She sniffed and nodded, ‘Good, Nylon, a cup of splosh for Mrs Jam please.’
Jack left and Nylon went to Margery, ‘Okay, Margery, do as Jack says, he called you Mrs Jam, it means he’s accepted you, okay?’ She rose from her desk, nodded and sobbed into Nylon’s handkerchief, which Mandy would not have touched with a barge pole, and thought what was is it with men and their hankies, but Mrs Jam took it; well, she supposed that was two big lessons for this Big Society woman.
The door banged open and everybody jumped, Jack was back, and shouted, ‘Nylon, get a replacement for Hissing Sid, he’s going home right now, and we ordered a bluebottle cab feckin’ ages ago, I’ve a good mind to switch my loyalty to another nick.’
Sixty-Two
Jack reassured Sid at his counter, and Mandy felt unusually sorry for this man she had in the past vilified.
There was a uniform at the door, ‘Jack, we’re not your personal taxi service.’
‘No, you’re mine!’
‘Superintendent, yes, ready when you are,’ a stiff reply.
‘Sid, Jack and I need to go, the cabbie’s getting snotty.’
‘I’m okay, Ma’am, thank you.’
‘Shut up, go and see your girl and give me cod and chips twice,’ Jack said, injecting some solemnity.
‘Heard you the first time,’ said by rote, but it brought a smile to Sid’s face.
‘Where to Ma’am?’
‘My flat it’s...’
‘We know, Ma’am,’ Bobby, the uniform turned. ‘Blues and twos, Jack?’
‘Brilliant, go for it, Bobby.’
He started for the switch, but Mandy stopped him, ‘We do not need sirens or flashing lights to take me home, bloody kids.’ Bobby made a face to Jack in the rear view mirror. ‘I saw that.’
They finished the journey in relative silence, except Bobby turned out to be a Millwall fan, an exiled Londoner, and they chatted about the Lions, mentioned for the umpteenth time the two corners they got against Man U in the FA cup final.
‘Jack, tell us how you had pie and mash and green liquor while you watched it,’ Mandy said, sarcastically.
‘She’s got your number, Jack,’ and Bobby smiled to himself, saw the look on Mandy’s face in the rear view mirror. ‘Sorry, Ma’am.’
Jack and Bobby waved goodbye like two kids as Mandy headed to the front entrance of her block of flats. ‘Wait here.’ He waited and Mandy soon reappeared in jeans and sweater, carrying a holdall bag, she was always quick; Jack liked this.
‘Liberties, Ma’am?’
‘Permission refused,’ she started her car, ‘and take that sulky look off your face,’ she said, as she drove off, ‘you may take minor liberties.’ After a while, ‘You amaze me, Sid and Mrs Jam. Jack you are well on your way to becoming an enema.’ Jack took the opportunity to slip his good hand between her legs, taking advantage of the good mood, but he’d pushed his luck.
They were quickly in and out of Jack’s, and headed to the fishing quay, along the seafront, looking out to the forts, ‘Are they there?’ Mandy asked.
‘If they are, I will kick myself, waiting to go in, what kind of torture will those kids suffer while we get our ducks in a row?’
At the Camber, Maisie kissed Jack’s eye, ‘Let’s get you two sorted,’ steering Jack and Mandy to the shed. Mandy choked on the acrid aroma. Jack told her that after a while you get to like it. I don’t think so, a strange man, she thought. Maisie handed out thick, fish-and-diesel-smelling jumpers, slick yellow trousers and sea boots. ‘It’s a nice day, do we need all this?’ Jack asked.
‘Nice inland, but choppy and breezy on the Solent,’ Maisie answered. ‘C’mon, Fatso wants to catch the tide.’
Jack watched Mandy waddle, ‘Don’t say a thing,’ she could see him with the eyes in the back of her head.
Maisie waited at the ladder, ‘Well you might pass from a distance, but up close you are two town softies. Del-Boy looks the part,’ she flicked her head to the boat, high in the water.
‘Del with us?’ Mandy asked.
‘He insisted, wanted to meet you again, sort of like a second date.’
She put her arm a little way around him and in pretty please speak, ‘Jack, can we have our third date on dry land?’
And with a show of more confidence than he felt, ‘Already working on it sweet’art. Toss-up between the pictures or a dirty weekend away in Exeketer, nice hotel, dinner with Liz and Curly Friday evening, and then, just you and me, babes.’
‘And Top Deck shandy, Jack, sounds lovely, surprise number three today.’
Jack watched Mandy struggle to swing her leg over the steel ladder, resisted the obvious joke, trying to remember the other two surprises.
Fatso called for Jack to get a move on, ‘Jack, the tide is turning.’ Jack looked, couldn’t see anything turning. Little Jack, named after Jack, just twelve and shaping up to be a cross between his Mum and Hagrid, slipped the mooring ropes and they felt the boat move with the building current, before Fatso gunned the engine.
‘Ahoy, Del Boy.’
‘Captain Birds Eye,’ Del responded.
‘Now that was funny,’ Mandy said, with a smirk, felt the swell, wobbled and sat down'
‘Just turned into the main channel, the ferry causing that, luv,’ Maisie said, busying herself in the galley. Del-boy joined them around the table for coffee. Mandy had only managed a brief assessment of Del the other evening, he was smaller, slighter than her first impression, the boyish charm was there with his floppy blond hair, but there was steel in the pale blue-grey eyes, which gave an impression not to mess with him. Little Jack appeared, shook Jack’s hand, other hand on the wrist, and they exchanged a look, and he kissed Mandy on the cheek, which surprised her.
‘He’s the cheeky one, Mandy,’ Maisie said.
Mandy didn’t mind the kiss, she was more interested in his feet, they were huge; it was his trainers she had worn the other night. Maisie, swaying with the boat, handed Little Jack two mugs of steaming hot chocolate. He took them, turned to go up the companion way, never spilling a drop, grinning with a full set of very white teeth; well there’s a difference, she thought.
Sixty-Three
‘The boat is being tracked by satellite and relayed to the CP room,’ Del said.
Jack got up, ‘I’ll go and wave.’
‘Sit down,’ Del-Boy said, ‘we also have cameras on the boat sides so we can review the fort. The approach by sea is the landing stage, or by air, two helipads. The property is leased on licence, which allows for viewers in the last quarter period, but not before then.’
‘Any sign who’s renting it?’ Mandy asked.
Del’s teeth gripped his bottom lip, ‘Shell Company in Belize, agents don’t give a toss, take their money and run all the way to the bank.’
‘Any agency has to inspect the property?’ Mandy added.
‘Done last month. Wouldn’t mind betting they didn’t go, took the cash anyway, this is a private renter who wants no disturbance.’
‘I bet,’ Mandy remarked.
The cabin door opened and Little Jack, with his high pitched voice and occasional croak, heralding manhood, sung down the stairs, ‘Coming up off Spitbank.’
Maisie gathered the mugs, ‘Try to look like you know what you’re doing, Jack,’ and she kissed his eye to compensate for the hurt look.
Up on deck, Del chastised Jack for waving to the satellite, his wave received in the CP room, everyone gathered, waiting for a second, which happened when Del’s back was turned. ‘I know you just waved again, how do you put up with him, Mandy?’
‘I always wanted more children, Del.’
The power of the sea around the base of Spitbank fort impressed Jack, he was not a man of the water, thought he might prefer to come in on the helicopter, but then he was not overly
keen on flying either.
Del interpreted Jack’s thoughts, ‘You will not be going in.’
‘Of course I’ll be going in.’
Del showed resolve in his boyish face, ‘Jack, I had my balls chewed off for letting you go into Osama’s. I’m sorry to say, even if you had the training, which you don’t, this is a young man’s game. I’m serious.’ Jack mumbled an irked reply. Mandy could see a testiculating standoff in the making. ‘I’m not changing my mind.’
They were like kids arguing in the playground, probably Jack’s influence, Mandy thought, ‘I don’t want him anywhere near if something goes off.’
‘Amanda, I don’t think you should be telling me what to do?’ Jack said, wobbling his head in that way you either thought endearing or infuriating, Mandy experienced both of these feelings at various times and chose, this time, to be endeared, but not to show it.
Del looked for some fishing jobs while Mandy noticed Jack disappear up a ladder to the wheelhouse; she joined him. The boat swayed more, higher up, but slowly she was getting her sea legs. Jack though, was looking green, ‘Diddums feeling Tom and Dick?’ and she chucked him under the chin.
Jack sighed and gave her his best patronising look, ‘Mandy, I’m a natural Mariner,’ he was queasy, but recalling Moby Dick, or was it Tom and Dick, he decided to be Captain Mayhap. He looked up, then down, Mandy had left and was now, on deck, knitting nets; “Always been a patronising Sod, Jack”, Kate’s voice said in his head, shite, where did that come from. They were passing No Man’s Land fort. Jack was not sure what he expected, but in his mind he thought he might find an excuse to go in; there was nothing.
‘I’m taking her to Langstone Harbour, out of sight, sit there for a while then return with the tide, okay Jack?’
‘Aye-aye, Cap’n,’ Jack decided to stay with Fatso.
'What’s up, you going to be sick?’