Missing, Presumed Dead

by J M Gregson

  ‘As you say. Well, he’ll be off next week. Apparently they’ve a crisis over Preston way.’ He spoke as if it was at least a continent away, rather than ten miles. ‘His replacement may be in later this week. Starts officially next Monday.’ He looked at Peach then, and he could not prevent a small smile flickering across the lower part of his face. Percy found it most disconcerting; it was as if a toy poodle had suddenly bared its teeth.

  ‘Do we know the officer, sir?’

  ‘No. At least I don’t myself.’ Again there was that disturbing smile, as if he was aware of a joke that hadn’t yet been revealed to the man in the armchair opposite him. Percy began to feel uneasy. ‘We do have a name then, sir.’

  ‘Oh yes, Percy. Your new detective sergeant will be called Blake.’ Chief Superintendent Tucker steepled his fingers and looked at the fluorescent light fitting in the ceiling of his office as if it was the most intriguing and amusing thing in the world.

  There was something going on here. Tucker hadn’t even needed to consult his papers to find the name. And he was smiling again: it was quite eerie. Percy racked his brains for a few seconds but the name meant nothing to him. ‘Might I know the officer’s age, sir?’

  This time Tucker did look at his papers. But he found the relevant one with unusual swiftness and certainty. In Percy’s view, that meant the chief had been studying it carefully immediately before he arrived. He found this more than ever disturbing. Tucker said, ‘Your new detective sergeant is only twenty-six, Percy. Recently promoted from DC, I believe, so clearly a promising officer. Probably be with you for quite a few years.’ Tucker appeared to find this a deliciously diverting thought. When he finally brought his eyes back to a normal plane, he seemed surprised to find Peach still sitting meekly in his office. ‘That will be all for now, Percy.’

  For the first time, Tucker had called him ‘Percy’ throughout an interview. On his way back downstairs, Peach found that the most disconcerting thing of all.

  ***

  On one thing, at least, Percy Peach would swiftly be reassured. The letter informing him that he had been accepted as a member of the North Lancashire Golf Club had been signed by the secretary and was already in the post for him. The last task of the day for the assistant in the club office was to type up the list of new members for display on the noticeboard of the club on the morrow.

  In the committee room on the first floor of the club, the six men who constituted the Greens Committee were debating a change to the course which would have more far-reaching consequences than any of them could foresee on that quiet evening.

  The chairman outlined the principles behind the proposal. ‘Water is a feature of many good courses. Where it occurs naturally, we should make the most of it. Modern machinery enables us to do that. Our idea is to transform the stream which runs in front of the eighth tee into a small lake, perhaps sixty yards across and roughly circular.’ He passed photocopies of a map of the suggested new hole round the table.

  There were mutterings of approval, then the usual questionings about the cost such alterations would occasion. ‘We would move the men’s tee back and a little to the left, making the hole more of a dog-leg, so that players would have to drive over the new lake to the fairway. Once we’d dammed the stream in the valley, we should demolish one end of the old quarry and let the water drain away to the new lake. That would allow proper visibility from the tee and make the new hole a visual delight as well as a golfing pleasure.’

  The head greenkeeper said, ‘We could do most of the work ourselves. It would need a professional blaster to put a charge in one side of the old quarry, and a driver and bulldozer for perhaps two days. My lads could do the rest.’

  The excitement grew as the project began to seem feasible. Someone said, ‘The ladies wouldn’t like it!’ and there were a few chuckles; it was not clear whether this was a point in favour of or against the scheme. It was eventually pointed out that if the ladies’ tee was left in its present place, it wouldn’t be a very great carry for them across the new water. And for the elderly and infirm of both sexes, there would be a method of playing round rather than over the new lake.

  So it was decided. The new lake and the longer hole were recommended to the full committee of the North Lancs. Within a week, they would accept the proposal. It all happened so swiftly that it seemed almost like unseemly haste to the older members among the decision-makers.

  It was a change to the course which would have profound effects for several of the members. Including the newest one of all, Detective Inspector Percy Peach.

  CHAPTER THREE

  For Gary Jones, the early mornings were the best times of all. He thought there could be no better place in the world to be at six o’clock on a summer morning than a deserted golf course. He had fallen on his feet when he got the job here, far more than he realized at the time.

  Dawn was coming later now of course, and the air was sharp with autumn cold. Soon the clocks would go back; it always felt as if winter wasn’t far away when that happened. But it would be lighter for a while in the mornings, and the trees in the lower parts of the course would be glorious mounds of colour in the still dawns. Gary looked forward to the changing seasons now. Until he came here, he had not been much aware of them.

  He looked at the watch that he had bought with the first money he had saved from his own earnings. Twenty to eight. Only another twenty minutes to breakfast. He enjoyed the gatherings round the stove in the big shed, waiting for the kettle to boil and swapping news and banter with the other lads. When he had first come here on the YTS scheme, they had been a bit rough with him. You had to take the jokes about bananas and jungle bunnies when you were black, even when you had lived all your life here and never been farther than Blackpool. The difficult thing was pretending you hadn’t heard them all before: people thought you were thin-skinned as well as black-skinned if you couldn’t raise a laugh for them.

  The worst of his tormentors had been the burly Charles Booth, whom he had once fought bitterly at school when he was only twelve. But the other green staff lads had taken Gary’s side when Charlie tried to revive old memories. When Gary had proved himself a willing worker and been taken on to the staff properly after his YTS period was finished, they had accepted him as one of them.

  Nowadays they all grumbled together about the members of the North Lancs and the stupid suggestions they made as they played the course. Each day, they shared the tasks of raking the bunkers, mowing the greens, and generally presenting the course as those same members would like it. As the head greenkeeper told them, ‘There’s plenty of daft buggers among them, I know, but they pay our wages each week, so grit your teeth and keep your head down. If in doubt, smile and say nothing.’

  Gary liked his boss. Tommy Clarkson, the Head Greenkeeper, had taken him under his wing from the early days, when he had known nothing about the work and had to be shown everything. One Saturday morning, when Mr Clarkson and Gary had been the only ones working, doing three hours’ overtime getting the greens cut ready for a competition, the boss had done a wonderful thing. When they had finished their work on the course and the first members were driving off from the first tee, he had invited young Gary into his neat little cottage beside the course. He had been given breakfast, and eaten it with Mrs Clarkson and the three noisy children. Bacon and egg and sausage and tomato: Gary could still conjure up the image of his plate after three years.

  From that day on, Tommy Clarkson’s black Labrador had taken a liking to Gary. It followed the slim figure everywhere on the course, sometimes running exuberantly behind the little dumper truck with the broad tyres that the green staff used to get around the course, sometimes riding beside him, chin on the side of the truck, pink tongue drooping from the side of his mouth in an expression of utter content.

  The other lads had enjoyed seeing the two of them together. ‘Come ‘ere, you black bastard!’ they’d shout, and then, ‘No, not you Gary, I meant the dog!’

  At least he h
adn’t heard that one before, and had been able to laugh. After that, he became one of the lads, even daring in due course to tease them as vigorously as they did him. And on Saturday afternoons, they went to the match together, trudging through mean streets to the fine new stadium Jack Walker’s money had built for his beloved Rovers. They chanted ‘Shearer! Shearer!’ with ten thousand others, a unified East Lancashire tribe, roaring home his goals, wearing the shirts their heroes wore on the field.

  When they came back to work on a Monday, they were a good working team, the five of them. And it was the nature of the job that you could always get away from the others, if you wanted to; the wide open spaces of the golf course meant that you were working on your own for quite a lot of the time.

  Gary was surprised how much he enjoyed the work. After the first few months, he had started to ask questions about fertilizers and weedkillers and why they were used at particular times of the year. Nowadays, Tommy Clarkson explained everything they were doing to him, as they hollow-tined the greens and treated the surrounds to kill the worms and sought out the tunnels where the moles made their secret progress.

  Tommy had said last week that he thought that if Gary kept up his interest he might get promotion in a year or two. He had even said that he thought he might have the ability to become in due course a Head Greenkeeper himself, if he kept on working and learning. Gary had never even thought of anything like that, but Tommy said there was no reason why he shouldn’t be ambitious. He’d have to learn how to give orders to the other lads but that would come easier as he got older. He was trying to get Gary on a course at the Greenkeepers’ Institute in March, but he wasn’t to say anything yet to the other lads, in case it caused trouble in the camp. Tommy Clarkson would tell them about it, when the time was right.

  Tommy usually went home to his cottage for his breakfast break but he was still in the tractor shed when Gary and the other lads came in from the different parts of the course on this bright September morning. He was raising the blades a fraction on the gang mowers, which were used to cut the fairways behind the big blue tractor.

  Clarkson looked up from the task when all his assistants were in the hut and the frying pan and the battered old toaster were overlaying the prevailing smell of oil with their own distinctive scents. ‘Could be some overtime for you hungry lads, in the run-up to Christmas.’

  There was immediate interest, as there always was at the mention of extra money. A bit of time and a half wouldn’t come amiss in October and November. It was in the autumn, when the grass ceased to grow and the routine tasks of maintaining the course took less of their time, that the overtime usually died away to nothing. The basic wage of the assistants was quite low, especially for the two of them who were married with babies. It was one of them who said, ‘What’s happening then, boss?’

  ‘Going to re-shape the eighth, aren’t we?’ Tommy Clarkson couldn’t keep the satisfaction out of his voice. The changes had been his suggestions in the first place, though he had learned enough about the ways of the world to allow the chairman of the Greens Committee to put them forward as his own scheme to his fellow-members.

  ‘Make it longer?’

  ‘Make it longer, and make it more of a dog-leg. And make it the only hole on the course with water to carry from the tee. More variety, you see.’ Tommy Clarkson was proud of his course. Golf World had called the North Lancs ‘one of the best three inland courses in the North of England’. And Tommy knew it was one of the best kept: he never boasted but he had the confidence of a man who was on top of his job.

  Gary said, ‘How’re we going to do that, boss?’

  ‘With a little help from modern machinery, a little knowhow, and by the sweat of our brows. Well, mainly the sweat of your brows, actually, lads, under my expert supervision. Hence the overtime.’ He grinned round at the expectant faces as they digested his news, then was surprised by the dismay on the darkest of them.

  Gary Jones said, ‘How shall us make this lake, Mr Clarkson?’ His Lancashire speech was always strong with the lads, asserting his right to be one of them. He did not often give his mentor his formal title nowadays: perhaps it was a reflection of the anxiety he felt.

  Clarkson looked at him curiously; he had expected nothing but enthusiasm for his news. ‘We shall build a dam across the stream which runs across the dip in front of the tee. There’s plenty of loose stone there from the old quarry. We shall be building a new tee behind that quarry so that the little lake we shall make will be directly between it and the fairway. The maximum carry from the back tee won’t be more than a hundred and fifty yards. Even you buggers’ll be able to make that!’

  There were some chuckles around the shed as Gary went to attend to the frying pan on the aged electric ring. Tommy was a good golfer, who had been down to four in his time. His assistants, who got cheap golf as one of the perks of the job, were at various stages of golfing development. Gary, with the suppleness of youth in his slim frame, had a fluid swing which hit the ball great distances, but not always in the direction he intended. He said, as casually as he could, ‘Won’t the old quarry be in the way of the drive from the tee, boss?’

  ‘Good thinking, young ‘un. The members of the North Lancs don’t like blind drives. So we shall move the bloody quarry! It won’t be difficult, with the wonders of modern technology brought in to help us.’ That was the phrase he always used when the club thought it necessary to supplement its own resources of manpower and machinery.

  Gary said stupidly, ‘Move the whole bloody thing?’

  Tommy was glad to be able to air his comprehensive grasp of the scheme. ‘It won’t be difficult. One charge of explosive at the lowest point of the old quarry, to blast it away and let the water out.’

  Gary did not have to ask the question this time. It was the deputy to Tommy Clarkson who said, ‘Won’t it mek a right mess of that area, boss? With all t’water and earth?’

  ‘It will for a little while, yes. But we shall have a bulldozer in for as long as is necessary to do the real earthmoving and the levelling. The water in the old quarry pond will run straight down the hill into our lake. We shall use the stone we dislodge to build up the dam to the height we want. The earth we shall level and sow with seed. If we can get on with it quickly before the winter rains, it shouldn’t look too much like the Somme.’

  Gary said, ‘But—but don’t we need permission to do things like this from the authorities? Altering the landscape, like?’

  ‘All been done, lad. County surveyor looked at it when he went round with me in the summer. Said it would “constitute an improvement to the environment and a greater amenity”: they like phrases like that, them environmental planners.’ Tommy rolled out the title with reverence, not the contempt he might have used a few months earlier. His eldest son had just applied for an Environmental Studies course at college.

  Gary said, ‘So the old quarry pond is going to disappear altogether?’

  Clarkson thought he had already made that quite clear. The black lad was usually quicker than this. He said, ‘Within a month, if we’re lucky and the weather helps us. Straight after the Autumn Scratch Medal is the plan.’ It was the last serious competition of the golfing year.

  Gary Jones did not eat a lot of breakfast after the boss had gone off to his cottage. He sat uncommunicative in the corner of the shed, anxious to be out on the course and alone with his thoughts.

  ***

  Chief Superintendent Tucker came upon Detective Inspector Peach in the car park of the Brunton nick at Friday lunch-time. The DI was gazing at the chief’s new Rover with a covetous air. That was not typical behaviour and Tucker should have been warned by it.

  Instead, he said, ‘Nice motor, isn’t she, Peach?’ and ran his fingers over the sleek maroon wing before fitting his key into the lock.

  Percy started as though he had been stabbed, though he had been well aware of Tucker’s approach behind him. He looked at the car as if seeing it for the first time. ‘Err, yes, I sup
pose it is quite nice, sir. Can’t say I’d really noticed, though. I was looking at the golf clubs on the back seat, you see. Nice to have time for a game during the week.’

  He managed to make the casual words ring like an accusation in Tucker’s ear, not least because he was bound straight for Brunton Golf Club and an afternoon fourball. The super said grandly, ‘One of the rewards of office, Peach.’ But he could not quite bring off the lordly disdain that would show he was not nettled.

  Peach nodded. ‘I feel I might be a tolerable player, if I could only get more time for the game.’ He sighed mournfully and turned away.

  Tucker, looking for a taunt in response, said, ‘I think they expect quite a high standard at the North Lancs. Perhaps you should have been a bit less ambitious. Haven’t heard about your membership, yet, I suppose?’ Even as he delivered the question, he felt suddenly that it was a mistake, that he had somehow been led into it by the entire innocent exchange.

  Percy said, ‘Oh, I heard about that a couple of days ago, sir. Just a formality, as I think I suggested to you the other day. I’m in all right. Quite looking forward to a round on a decent course. When my duties permit it, of course.’ He was away into the building before Tucker could even attempt to force out his congratulations.

  ***

  On the Friday of that week, Peach bade an uncharacteristically fond farewell to the detective sergeant who had been his diligent supporter for three years.

  During that time, he had delighted in referring to the tall, taciturn DS Collins as ‘that long streak of discretion’, but he realized now how well they had complemented each other in their methods. Collins had sometimes had to work to retain his dignity in the face of Percy’s apparent contempt, but he had never lost his composure. It had been a valuable quality, whilst he was working with an inspector who went for villains like a pit bull, who sometimes made his mind up on scanty evidence about who the villains were.