Policeman's Progress

by Bernard Knight

  As his crooning mistress continued to wriggle her hips at the ‘mugs’ while seemingly doing her best to swallow the microphone, Jackie began painting rosy pictures of the Stott nightclub empire. Thanks to Thor Hansen, the two in Newcastle were prospering and this one in Middlesbrough could hardly fail to be another success. Then …

  He came back to earth as Laura finished and made her way over to his table, giving false smiles in reply to the hopeful leers of the men as she threaded between them.

  ‘Christ, gimme a gin and tonic! The air in here is like sewer gas!’ she said.

  Jackie snapped his fingers and Freda came over again, noticeably slower this time and without the welcoming smile, when she saw Laura sitting with Jackie.

  The drink arrived and with it came Thor Hansen, who had been watching the play upstairs.

  ‘Fair crowd tonight, Thor,’ observed Jackie expansively.

  ‘Lecherous lot of swine!’ cut in Laura. ‘Can feel them undressing you with their eyes.’

  Stott grinned. ‘Your bread and butter, pet – perhaps you ought to do the strip instead of Rita!’

  The woman gave him a look that would have loosened the teeth of anyone less tough than Jackie. ‘Don’t know why the hell I do it – I’m not appreciated round here, that’s the trouble.’

  ‘I appreciate you, pet.’ Jackie stretched out a hand and put it on her bare back. The dress, though high in front, dipped to the waist behind.

  She twitched angrily to shake him off. ‘Lay off, will you, Jackie,’ she hissed. ‘In front of all these damn goons!’

  His lips tightened and his cheerful mood began to fade. The Dane sensed the bad atmosphere between the two and stepped in with his usual tact to change the subject. ‘Looks as if we’re going to have a day free from the police.’

  Jackie scowled. ‘That Bolam is getting a pest. What the hell does he think he’s going to gain by creeping in here all the time?’

  ‘The other clubs get him, too – especially Eddie Freeman’s – so we’re not being singled out exclusively.’

  Jackie shook his big head angrily. ‘He comes here a damn sight more than Eddie’s and, God knows, Freeman is up to his neck in every racket in the book. So why does he hang around here?’

  ‘If you don’t know that, you’re even dafter than I thought,’ snapped Laura, with icicles in her voice, and jerked her head across the room to a table near the band rostrum. ‘Who d’you think she is, then?’

  Jackie stared at the place Laura had pointed out. At the table, a small one tucked against the wall, a dark girl of about twenty sat alone. This in itself was nothing unusual in Jackie’s place, but the girls he knew were always there on business. This one was a world apart from them. She was quite good-looking, but by no means outstanding. The main point he noticed was that she gazed fixedly at the four-man music group on the stage. With chin resting on a hand, her eyes never left them.

  ‘What you trying to say, Laura?’ he snapped irritably.

  ‘You’ll see when the boys finish murdering that tune,’ she retorted. The discordant wailing of an electric guitar, double bass, and electronic organ died with a final thump of drums and cymbal.

  The Rising Sun audience were not the type to bother with applause for mere musicians and almost before the echoes had faded, the performers were on their way to the bar. All except one, the guitarist. He made his way across to the corner table where he kissed the dark girl, then sat down holding her hand across the Formica top.

  ‘See!’ exclaimed Laura, triumphantly.

  Jackie looked at her, baffled. ‘So what?’

  The singer looked at him pityingly. ‘That’s Bolam’s daughter,’ she said.

  Jackie Stott’s pale eyes opened wider. A low whistle escaped him. ‘Bolam’s girl with Freddie Robson! Well, what d’yer know! I never thought he had it in him.’

  ‘Freddie – why not?’ snapped Laura.

  ‘Because if Freddie’s not a poof, I’m a monkey’s uncle!’

  Laura managed to resist the obvious retort to this, but snapped at him again. ‘That’s all an act, you idiot. He’s all there, is Freddie. That girl’s been coming in for a month or more now. She’s mad keen on Freddie – not on his guitar playing, either!’

  Jackie grinned and rubbed his hands. ‘I don’t know how, but this looks like a stick to beat Bolam with … any ideas, Thor?’

  The tall Dane kept his impassive look firmly in place.

  ‘Not really – I can’t see any need to beat the police at present. Apart from taking up a few minutes of our time, they haven’t bothered us … we’ve nothing to hide, have we?’

  The last words carried a subtle sarcasm, but they were lost on Jackie’s insensitive ears.

  A sudden thought struck him. ‘She’s not a minor, is she? … for God’s sake don’t let Daddy find some excuse to fix us with his own daughter.’ He looked a little wild-eyed for a moment. ‘Hey, perhaps he’s planted her here for that – or some other bloody mischief.’

  Laura looked at him as if he had just crawled from under a stone. ‘Relax. Your imagination is like some fifth-rate movie … she’s over twenty-one, as it happens – a month or more past.’

  Jackie scowled again. ‘How come you seem so well in with Bolam’s family affairs? You think she’s a rival for you over Freddie now?’

  Laura almost spat in his face. ‘If you must know, Freddie told me that he met the Bolam girl at her twenty-first birthday party. Probably the one and only time he’ll ever set foot in her old man’s house!’

  Stott made no reply, but stood up and brushed the cigar ash from the front of his well-filled suit.

  ‘Tell Freddie I want to see him in the office, Thor.’

  He went out to the small room in the foyer and in a few moments, Freddie Robson came in rather nervously.

  He was a pretty, fair-haired lad, slimly built and somewhat girlish-looking, but by no means deserved Jackie’s label of ‘queer’. Twenty-six, single, and an indifferent musician, he was good enough for the quartet that provided the noise at the Rising Sun.

  ‘Sit down, Freddie. Let’s have a few words.’

  Jackie was full of false heartiness.

  Freddie groped for a chair and promptly knocked it over. He picked it up and nervously sat down facing the boss.

  ‘Have a fag?’ Jackie smoked small cigars, but always carried cigarettes to hand out.

  Freddie extended a shaking hand and, in trying to get hold of one, knocked the whole packet on to the desk.

  ‘Take it easy, chum, I’m not going to bleeding eat you,’ snapped Stott. ‘I want to know about your girlfriend.’

  ‘Betty?’ Freddie asked, in surprise.

  Jackie nodded. ‘You know she’s a top copper’s kid?’

  The guitarist nodded spasmodically. ‘Yeah – I bin to their house once.’

  ‘First and last time, eh?’

  ‘Yus … her old man is all set to skin me alive if he can find an excuse. Hates me like poison.’

  ‘Why’s that then?’ asked Stott.

  Freddie Robson shrugged his thin shoulders. ‘Dunno, really. Because I ain’t a copper, because I ain’t his type …’

  ‘And because you work for me in this club!’ completed Jackie.

  Freddie nodded. ‘That’s about it, Mr Stott. He’s as mad as hell. Just about busted up their home life, Betty says.’

  Freddie doesn’t seem too broken up about the prospect, thought Jackie. ‘Where do you fit into this, lad – you go for her?’

  Freddie shrugged again. ‘She’s a good kid.’

  ‘What’s that mean – you want to marry her or something?’

  ‘Hell no, I’m not the marrying kind. Lay ’em and leave ’em, that’s me.’

  Jackie Stott erupted into a great burst of laughter and slapped Freddie on the shoulder, almost breaking the delicate boy’s arm. ‘Great, man … and have you?’

  ‘Have I what?’

  ‘Laid her, you nit!’

  Freddie shook his head.
‘No … she’s different from most. Part of the attraction. She’s High School and got a strong daddy – all that crap. She wants to, but won’t give in easy.’ He looked reflectively at his shaking fingernails. ‘I’m in no hurry – once I make it, it’ll be “cheerio” … know what I mean?’

  Jackie beamed and gave Freddie a great man-of-the-world nod. ‘Look here, Freddie. Her old man is on my back over this club business. I want to get at him, so you pull out all the stops with his kid, right? Get her really on the boil, but don’t actually do it until I say the word … if I say it.’

  Freddie looked at his boss in surprise. ‘What’s the idea … you want me to commit hara-kiri with her old man! I gotta box clever as it is or he’ll murder me.’

  Jackie raised his hand. ‘Leave it to Uncle Jackie, Freddie! Look, you can even suggest marrying her, if it helps … yeah, that’s a good tack, that. Get her lined up for the ring and registrar.’

  The guitarist goggled at him.

  ‘Marry her! Gawd, have a heart!’

  Jackie waved his hand. ‘Don’t worry, it’ll never come off. I just want to be able to put the squeeze on her old man. You just lay on the bloody charm, Freddie. I’ll make it worth your while, never fear.’

  Freddie saw a glimmer of light and nodded dubiously. ‘Hope you will, Mr Stott. Getting foul of Alec Bolam is like sitting on a flaming landmine. I’m half scared to even pass a copper in the street these days, for fear he’ll have me in the nick … ’specially over the little sideline I’m running.’

  He stopped speaking suddenly, afraid that he might have said too much.

  Jackie just grinned. ‘That’s your business, laddie … though if I were you, I’d stick to Newcastle Brown Ale and women, and leave the other stuff alone.’

  He jerked his head in dismissal and Freddie weaved his way out. Jackie wondered idly whether his guitar playing would be any better for a few puffs of a reefer now and then, instead of the pep pills.

  Chapter Five

  Looking back on the whole affair, Alec Bolam would have agreed that the next day of that week – the Wednesday – as when everything really began to get on the boil. At the time, however, the varied events of the day were just unconnected happenings.

  Late in the afternoon, Bolam went along to see his chief superintendent on some routine matter. When this was dealt with, he stayed for a smoke and a chat. The head of Tyneside CID was a craggy Scotsman named MacDonald.

  ‘How’s the battle going then, Alec?’ he asked.

  ‘Very slow, sir. I don’t know whether the rogues are getting more cunning or more honest, but there’s been hardly a thing around the clubs these past few weeks. Thought I had something to hang on Eddie Freeman, but I doubt if it’ll stick.’

  ‘What’s that’

  ‘Oh, the old chestnut about harbouring toms in his place. We know fine that the girls hang about there, but he says if they pay their membership fees, he can’t stop them – and who they sleep with after the club shuts is none of his business.’

  MacDonald nodded. ‘He’ll say naught about the backhander he gets from them for using his place for the old come-on … it’s a damned hard charge to survive a good defence lawyer – and we’re cursed with enough of those in this city, God knows!’

  ‘Anything else?’ he asked after a moment.

  ‘A bit of a punch-up on Jackie Stott’s boat, that’s all.

  The Scotsman’s curly grey eyebrows went up a trifle. He wanted to hear all the details. ‘And didn’t this Armstrong make a charge?’ he asked at the end.

  Bolam turned up his palms. ‘Dunno – no one’s seen him since. I sent Grainger around to his digs, but he’s gone. The sergeant tried again today, just for the record, but his landlord had had a telegram from London saying that he wasn’t coming back. Wanted his stuff packed up, ready for forwarding. Jackie Stott must have scared the daylights out of him.’

  ‘Was he on the fiddle’

  ‘Probably – one less villain in the town.’

  MacDonald sighed. ‘Always another to take his place.’

  The conversation drifted on to other things, just as the curtain rose on another scene in the drama, at a spot eight miles away, where a Tyne Division launch was leaving the River Headquarters at South Shields. It was a routine patrol, on the other beat from Ernie Leadbitter’s section.

  This boat had the wider, busier part of the river, from the shipyards at Wallsend and Jarrow down to the great piers which jutted out pugnaciously into the grey North Sea.

  The launch, F for Fox this time, growled away from the Mill Dam jetty and headed down river towards the sea. Mike Milburn was the sergeant in charge, a younger man than Leadbitter, but with plenty of experience on the river and, before that, in the Navy.

  He and his constable had done the up-river section of their beat on the first part of the shift and were now setting off for a leisurely circuit of the seaward end before it got dark. The fine December morning had given way to a mist with a threat of snow. At three-thirty, visibility was already poor. They slid between a pair of colliers waiting at the buoys and headed along the south bank of the river.

  ‘Quite lively these past few days, sarge.’

  This driver was a talker, unlike Horace. He was talking about ships, not crime, nodding at the clutter of vessels in the lower reaches of the river.

  Milburn looked around, his sailor’s eyes identifying all the different craft. ‘Marvellous how quickly it can change – might come out in the morning and see damn all here!’

  The views slowly altered as they moved downstream as far as the hailing station opposite the pilot jetty. There was nothing beyond except the great open triangle of water between the granite piers. The constable swung the police launch around and by the time they got up to Smith’s Dock again, the light had almost gone.

  As usual, their thoughts turned to the imminent ‘cuppa’ back in the station office, but when they were level with a rusty old dredger, Milburn looked curiously through the side window at the ugly craft.

  ‘What the hell they doing on the bucket-dredger – having a strike or summat?’

  More from the reflected lights of the docks and ships than from the sky, he could see a group of figures clustered on the bow of the clumsy vessel. Then there was a thin, bleating wail and a jet of steam from her funnel.

  ‘She’s blowing her flipping hooter!’ exclaimed the constable from the driving seat. He sounded incredulous. ‘I never heard that in seven year on t’ river. Didn’t even know she had a one!’

  The sergeant slid back the Perspex side window and stuck his head out for a better look. ‘I think they’re waving at us – there’s the siren again. Take her over there, something’s going on.’

  The constable racked his wheel around and they swerved across towards the dredger which was moored both to the dockside and to buoys out in the river. By winching itself back and forth between these, it moved slowly sideways while scooping the mud from outside the dry dock gates.

  As they cruised up to it, Milburn could see that the crew were waving wildly at them. The great wheel at the top of the pithead device had stopped and the endless chain of huge buckets had ground to a halt.

  When they came alongside, Milburn clambered onto the launch’s gunwale and threw a rope to a ready hand on the dredger.

  ‘What’s all the panic – you been torpedoed?’

  ‘We was just going to send a boat ashore to ring up the station – then we saw you coming up river … we just raised a body.’

  The sergeant sighed. Their Division recovered a dead body from the river at least once a fortnight, so another would be no novelty. ‘Let’s have a look at it, then.’

  He jumped aboard and marched forward along the rusty deck.

  Though it was virtually dark, the bow of the dredger was well-lit, thanks to a battery of lamps hanging overhead. The rest of the crew were clustered around the deep slot in the centre of the vessel, where the chain of buckets vanished into the black water.


  ‘Hasn’t got a bloody stitch on, sarge.’

  The captain of the dredger came up to Milburn and led him across the tangle of chains and cables to the side of the dredging well. He pointed at the third bucket from the bottom, which was about level with the deck.

  From the lip of the great steel scoop, a curious white object stuck out. It took Milburn several seconds to realize that it was the bare backside of a human body. The head and feet were doubled up inside the bucket, which was big enough to hold three men.

  Bewick, his constable, came stumping along the deck behind him, having secured the police launch to the side of the dredger.

  ‘Another drowner – stuck in a bucket this time,’ report Milburn.

  ‘Makes a change – being in t’ scoop, I mean,’ observed Bewick phlegmatically. ‘How do we get him oot?’

  Eventually, the dredger boss decided to hoist the bucket boom from the water. The great scoops travelled in an endless belt around a long arm, which was pivoted at the top, twenty feet above the deck. The boom was winched up and as the buckets became more and more horizontal, mud and water gushed from them.

  ‘For God’s sake, don’t tip him out!’ warned Milburn in alarm, as the buttocks gave a sudden lurch.

  The winch stopped wheezing and the two policemen scrambled on to the boom, slipping on the treacherous coating of black Tyne mud. One on each side of the bucket, they clung to its lip and peered in. There was still a lot of water and sludge inside and no head nor feet could be seen.

  ‘Pretty fresh – though in this weather, he might as well be in a fridge.’

  Milburn’s implied decision about the gender of the remains was confirmed by the view they had of the body.

  ‘Right, let’s be having him,’ muttered Bewick.

  ‘Want a sling on him?’ called the dredger man.

  In a moment, a coir rope was slung over some structure above and dangled down into the bucket. The policemen then ran a clove hitch around the hips of the corpse.

  ‘Haul away!’ called Milburn, stepping back off the bucket boom to avoid the shower of filth that would drip off the body as it rose.