Just the Job, Lad

by Mike Pannett

  A small group of youths, maybe four or five, had followed me down the road. I knew most of them by sight and I’d had dealings with one or two of them in the past. I could tell they were thinking about wading in, and I was now on my own. I needed to sort this Wilks character out, make them think twice, give myself a chance to get some backup. They were hard on my heels, shouting abuse at me and encouragement to their mate Wilks.

  If ever there was a time to make a pre-emptive strike, this was it. In our neck of the woods, you can generally count on people hesitating before actually assaulting a copper. I ran at Wilks, steadied myself, then kicked his legs with all the strength I could muster. I caught him just right, round the back of his knees. Down he went like a felled tree. I jumped on him, grabbing an arm. Fordy wriggled out from his grasp and grabbed the other. Bingo. The cuffs were in place and matey was spluttering his venom into the icy pavement.

  ‘You bastards.’

  ‘You take one of us on, buddy’ – I was gasping from the effort of the run and bringing him down – ‘and you take us all on. You know that.’

  He was torn between giving me more verbals and struggling to free himself, but it was all he could do right now to catch his breath, writhing about on the ground on his stomach like a beached whale.

  ‘Fordy.’ I stood up, straightening my jacket. ‘You OK, mate?’

  ‘F***ing hell Mike, it was touch and go. I thought I was going through that window.’ He rubbed his head and tried to smile.

  I turned on the group who had followed me down the road. They’d backed off and were across the other side of the road. ‘Right, you lot,’ I shouted. ‘Disappear now or you will be arrested.’ They stood there for a moment, clearly looking for a lead from someone. Then one of them said, ‘C’mon lads, let’s get the f*** out of here.’

  ‘Right Fordy, you keep him there.’ I pointed at Wilks, who’d fallen silent. ‘If anybody else comes near you, gas ’em. I’m going to help the others.’

  I ran back up the road. One or two cars were edging slowly past, the occupants winding down the windows to see what was going on, then speeding away up the hill. Will the Special and one of the late-turn lads had got another youth on the floor and were struggling to get the cuffs on him while a crowd of his mates shouted and jeered. Jacko was there, muscles bulging under his short-sleeved shirt, geeing everybody up. As I approached I saw him draw himself back and kick Will as hard as he could from behind, catching him in the middle of his back and hurling him forward. Then he was in, raining punches down on him. Tough as Will was, I could see he was getting hurt, but he still didn’t let go of the lad on the ground. I was within twenty yards of them, running flat out, shouting at Jacko: ‘You! Get off him! Now!’ I reached them just as Jacko started pulling Will’s body armour to one side to try and get his punches into his ribs. Just as I was about to hurl myself on him he turned to face me, his hands on Will’s body armour. The look of pure malice and aggression almost stopped me in my tracks. I was trembling with anger and fear. It was like being in a boxing ring when the bell’s just gone, that moment when you know the fight’s about to start.

  ‘Get back! Get back!’ I saw Jayne, leaning forward and emptying her CS gas canister into Jacko’s face, then turning to spray it on the lads who were swarming round.

  It’s amazing what you’re capable of when you’re really, seriously, up against it – not to mention scared. One moment the guy was staggering, coughing, the next he was coming at us, lashing out with his fists. I ducked under a huge swing, reached forward, grabbed hold of his shirt with both hands, and lifted him clean off the ground. He must have weighed fourteen stone, minimum. God knows how I did it, and God knows what his shirt was made of, but it held, and there I was throwing him back down. Before he could get himself upright I jumped on him, turned him over so that he was face down, and pinned him to the ground. Jayne followed, piling on top of him, knocking the remainder of his breath out of him. The thing that struck me then was the smell of his aftershave combined with the CS gas. It was sickly sweet and made my eyes water.

  As I fumbled for my cuffs, Ed came running up and snapped his own set on the prisoner. Next thing I heard Jayne gasping out, ‘You’re under arrest . . . for assaulting a police officer . . . and affray.’

  As I stood up the big fellow’s mates were crowding in on us, jostling us. I shoved them back, cracked my Asp open, and stood there with Jacko at my feet. ‘One step nearer, any of you, and you’ll get this. I’m warning you.’ Jayne was by my side with her canister in her hand, ready to give them another dose. She shook it, just to make her intentions clear, then looked at me. ‘Mike, I’m out of gas, mate.’

  ‘Here,’ I said. ‘Take mine.’

  Jacko may have been on the ground handcuffed, but he was still trying to get his mates to have a go. ‘I know who you are,’ he snarled. ‘All of you. Just wait until I see you off duty. You might think you’re tough now . . .’ But somehow he didn’t convince. I could see that he was shocked; we’d come at him hard and fast, and he hadn’t expected that. As far as I was concerned we’d done absolutely the right thing. The situation was still in the balance. If Jacko’s cronies and the eight or ten other youths who’d gathered around had decided to go for us, we might well have been in trouble.

  You don’t always realise how tense you are, how frightened, until the danger passes. The stand-off with the youths had lasted barely thirty seconds when the faces of our potential assailants were lit up by the blue lights as more backup appeared from all directions. In an instant I felt my shoulders drop as I let out a huge sigh of relief. The ‘cavalry’ consisted of a York traffic car, a York dog unit and a double-crewed unit from Eastfield, available for the simple reason that this was still relatively early, and the clubs in York and Scarborough had yet to turn out.

  ‘Right.’ I moved a couple of steps closer to the group. ‘Back off – now – or you will be arrested.’ They took a quick look at the back-up officers – and the dog – and started to disperse.

  Our arrests that night numbered eight, and another two would be picked up later. We had room for four at Malton and the rest had to be taken through to Scarborough. It meant that all our available officers, bar two, were off the streets.

  We could’ve lost it that night, but we’d scraped through. As it was we had one officer spending his Christmas morning at the hospital with a dislocated shoulder, Will MacDonald nursing a stiff back and bruised ribs, and Fordy with bad bruising, or shaken but not stirred, as he put it. It could, of course, have been much, much worse. If further disorder had broken out while we were all involved in transporting prisoners, God knows how we’d have managed. But I preferred to look on the positive side. For me, whatever else it was, it had been a useful bit of team-building and the younger officers would be all the better for the experience.

  Back at the nick everyone was upbeat, on a high. The place was buzzing, a bit like a dressing room after you’ve won an important football match. ‘I hope the late shift take note of this,’ Jayne said as she took off her body armour. ‘That’s how you deal with aggravation. No messing, eh? Get into ’em.’

  I found Fordy slumped in a chair opening his sandwich box. ‘Look,’ I said, ‘I know you’ve got a thing about that lass who works in Thomas the Baker, but come on – trying to get in through the front window using Fatty Wilks as a battering ram? If you have to try that hard to impress a girl, well . . .’

  ‘Yeah,’ he said, ‘but who got the cuffs on him and made the arrest, eh?’

  While I was taking the mick out of Fordy, Thommo couldn’t resist having a go at me. As he banged his helmet and Asp on the mess-room table he said, ‘Just how many prisoners did ye bring in, laddie? I mean, fair shares and all that – young Jayne here’s made two arrests and we’ve all got one. Where were you?’

  ‘What you’re forgetting, Thommo’ – I gave him my best choirboy smile – ‘what you’re overlooking is, I was far too busy bailing you lot out so you could make those arrests in th
e first place.’

  ‘Yeah, right,’ Jayne said.

  ‘No no,’ I said. ‘It’s the season of goodwill, isn’t it?’

  ‘What you on about?’

  ‘Jayne, you’ve missed the point. You lot need the figures. I don’t. I just thought I’d help you out, that’s all. Can’t have you giving our shift a bad name, can I? So, you know, how’s about a bit of gratitude?’

  I could see her getting ready to give me a mouthful when Cocksy came in. ‘Here, don’t you know what time it is?’ He was carrying a tin of mince pies and a tray of teas. ‘It’s well gone three o’clock, lads and lasses.’ He placed his tray on the table. ‘Christmas starts here. So go on, get stuck into ’em.’

  The rest of the night was a good deal easier. It needed to be. Maybe, as Jayne suggested, word had got around town that the A team was on duty. That was one way of looking at it. I preferred to think that the majority of those who were out and about were there for a good time, to celebrate the holiday. We see so many pictures, and hear so many stories, of people behaving badly when they’ve had a drink. It’s easy to forget that most people who go out to the pub are perfectly well-behaved and willing to go home quietly – well, reasonably quietly – when the night is over.

  It’s a traditional goodwill gesture for the early shift to come to work a bit ahead of time on Christmas morning, so that the night duty can get away sharpish, so I was home in good time. Ann, of course, was already on her way to work and had left me a note propped up by the kettle to say that Henry had been out for his morning walk. I gave him a biscuit out of his bag of Christmas treats and headed off to bed.

  Ann had hung mistletoe above the bed and strung tinsel round the bedpost. On the pillow was a chocolate reindeer. I carefully placed it on the bedside cabinet and slipped under the duvet, which was still nice and warm. I put my head on the pillow and tried to relax, but of course I immediately started thinking about what I needed to do to prepare our Christmas dinner. Turkey, I thought. How big was that bird? Was it thoroughly defrosted? How long does it need to be in the oven? Is it twenty minutes a pound, plus the extra twenty? Or is it twenty-five? That got me worrying about how long I could sleep before I needed to put it in. Sod it, I thought. It needs to go in now or we won’t be eating till ten o’clock tonight.

  I jumped out of bed, threw on my icy-cold shorts and T-shirt, grabbed the reindeer and headed downstairs. I needed an energy boost; one bite and the reindeer’s head was gone. I put the rest on the table, turned the oven on and started to prepare our half of Walter’s gobbler. It was only when I’d got the chestnut stuffing ready that I noticed there was nowhere to put it, the usual orifice having been sliced in half by the chainsaw. I shoved the stuffing back in the fridge, then crossed my fingers as I prepared to slide the big bird into the oven. In it went – just. Nice and snug. I was now wide awake, of course. I made a brew and nibbled the hind legs off the reindeer. Then I wandered into the living room, where Ann had put our gifts under the tree. I remembered how excited I used to get as a boy on Christmas morning, and couldn’t resist picking up one or two of the nicely wrapped boxes, giving them a shake and a sniff and wondering what they might be. Then, for the first time in my life, I found myself wondering what it would be like if I had a little Pannett beside me by the tree. Strewth, I thought, where did that come from? Still pondering, I double-checked the oven setting and went back to bed.

  I got up just after two, had a peep in the oven and lit the fire. Then I cracked on with the vegetables.

  Everything was just about ready when Ann came home. The house was warm as toast, the whole downstairs smelled of roast meat, and I’d got a bottle of sparkling wine in the fridge. We sat by the fire and opened our presents, helped by a highly excited Henry, before tucking into a very tasty Christmas dinner.

  It was early evening. I’d just been outside to get a breath of fresh air and check that Henry did what dogs need to do. It was a crisp, starlit night, with a rime of frost over the grass, and not a breath of wind. I looked up at the chimney that Soapy had rebuilt all those months ago and watched a plume of smoke drift straight up into the sky. Back inside Ann and I cuddled up by the log fire.

  ‘Just one thing you’ve forgotten,’ she said. ‘Something we’ve been looking forward to for weeks. Months.’

  ‘No,’ I said, ‘you’ve got me there. Not something else to eat is it, because I’m ready to burst.’

  ‘That’s a point. The chocolate reindeer. Where’s that?’

  Quick as a flash I pointed at Henry, and to my great relief Ann laughed.

  ‘That blooming dog. Ah, never mind,’ she said. ‘No, I was thinking of something to drink.’ She stared at me. I hadn’t the faintest idea what she was on about. ‘Oh dear, Mike. You and your memory. What do they say, you’d forget your own head if it wasn’t screwed on?’

  ‘What, have I put the hairbrush in the fridge again?’

  She got up and went to the kitchen, returning with a couple of sherry glasses in one hand and Walter’s sloe gin in the other.

  ‘Oh, that,’ I said. ‘Yeah, get it open. I just hope it lives up to expectations. The way Walt built it up I’m expecting a life-changing experience.’

  She poured us a glass apiece, smelled hers, then closed her eyes and raised the plum-red liquor to her lips.

  ‘Hang about,’ I said. ‘Toast first.’

  ‘Oh, right.’ She clinked her glass against mine.

  ‘Here’s to us, and whatever the future may bring.’

  Chapter 14

  Full-steam Ahead

  Our Christmas break lasted all of twenty-four hours. After having Boxing Day off together it was straight back to work for the pair of us. It was well into January before we got so much as a day off together and were able to drive out to the coast, to Staintondale, where I used to spend my holidays as a lad. The December cold spell had given way to much milder weather and we managed a few hours’ hiking along the clifftops before heading for the eighteenth-century coaching inn at Hayburn Wyke where we had dinner. It was good to be able to relax for a few hours, enjoy each other’s company, and look back over the past twelve months.

  Ann felt she’d had a decent year, settling into her new job in York. The travelling had been easier than she’d expected, and she was getting on well with her new colleagues. On the home front, after all those problems with the roof during the summer, things had started to come right. Algy had shaken hands on our offer on the house, leaving us to settle up with Soapy. Ann and I had calculated what we were willing to pay, and I’d gone to the bank to withdraw it in cash. Soapy’s eyes were out on stalks when I flashed the bundle at him. ‘Job’s a good ’un,’ he said, holding out his hand. Then he counted it out and his face fell. ‘Yeah, cheers Mike. It’s a lot of cash, and it’s a big help,’ he said, ‘but I sometimes wonder if we’ll ever save enough money for the wedding Becky wants. We’ll just have to put it back again.’

  ‘How much longer have we to wait?’ I said. ‘You’ve been threatening to name a day since this time last year.’

  Soapy weighed the cash in his hand. ‘This is all very well, but it’ll still leave us scratching around,’ he said. ‘It ain’t cheap, I’m telling you. We’re aiming for April, but there’s still the car, the cakes, the flowers.’ He re-counted the pile of notes.

  ‘Soapy, my old mate,’ I said. ‘Cards on the table. Me and Ann had a feeling you were struggling. But here’s what we reckon. Algy owes you a favour or two, so you can tap him up for the loan of a car. There’s that little sports job – or the Frazer Nash. Yes?’

  He nodded, but I could see he wasn’t convinced.

  ‘Look, it won’t cost you a penny. Maybe a drop of juice in the tank. Then, as for a cake, here’s the deal. We’ve arranged for Walt’s sister to knock one up at cost, and we’ll see her right. She used to make them professionally and she can decorate it any way Becky wants.’

  ‘Aw, that’s brilliant Mike.’

  ‘And as for flowers, I know just th
e person to speak to.’

  ‘Who’s that then?’

  ‘Ann’s aunty. She’s a dab hand. No, she’s more than that. She’s a bloody marvel. She’s done loads of weddings. We’ll pick up the cost for that as well, which means you’ve got a fair rate for your building work – and we can spread the costs over the next few months, yeah? That way everyone’s a winner.’

  ‘Mike, you’ve done me proud, cock-bod. Becky’ll be over the moon. Hey, make sure you say thanks to Ann for me.’

  ‘Too right I will. It was her daft idea in the first place. You don’t think that I’d be quite that generous, do you? Anyway, just remember: if anything goes wrong with that roof, you owe us a free repair job.’

  Soapy went home grinning from ear to ear. Paying him off had nearly cleaned us out, but we knew we’d got a good deal that suited everyone. Next day we were able to instruct our solicitors to make our offer to Algy formal, and early in January we received confirmation from the bank that we could get a mortgage on the place. Once the solicitors had done their work we could look forward to calling Keeper’s Cottage our own.

  Somehow, in between work and all the commotion at home, I’d managed to cram in the bookwork for my sergeant’s Part One written exam, which I’d be sitting in just a few weeks’ time. I’ll never actually enjoy that kind of studying. I’m just no good at sitting still. But I did find – to my surprise – that putting in a few hours each week at odd times depending on what shift I was working, I was able to retain the information. I suppose I’m quite lucky in that I seem to have a really good short-term memory. All I had to do was peak at the right time. Of course, I also had Ann around, and that was a massive help. She was always ready to answer my questions, explain some of the more difficult aspects of legislation – and reassure me that I would, eventually, get the hang of it all. She said it was all a bit like driving. You don’t so much learn to drive, she said, as learn how to pass the test. When the exam’s behind you, that’s when you start acquiring the skills and confidence that make you really competent. With Ann being a sergeant herself, she was able to back up all the theoretical stuff I was reading with day-to-day examples of what the job actually entails. If there was one thing that was still worrying me, however, it was that I’d only had the one brief spell standing in as acting sergeant at Malton – albeit one that had ended up with the manic activity and high drama of that bank holiday afternoon back in August. You need to grab all the experience you can get, because the Part One written exam is followed several months later by the Part Two, and that’s where the fun really starts. You’re confronted with live scenarios, with actors playing out the roles of suspects, fellow officers, solicitors and members of the public, to test your skills to the absolute limit. If you pass that, then it’s a matter of waiting for a vacancy to come up. In London or one of the other big-city forces, that’s not much of a worry; in a small force like North Yorkshire, though, you’re more or less waiting to step into a dead man’s shoes, as the saying goes. But all that was a long way off. Right now, I knew I needed more experience as a sergeant. And I wasn’t getting it.