by J M Gregson
She certainly wouldn’t tell Jack Dawes how that Detective Sergeant Hook had shaken her up and made her contemplate her future. She’d have quite fancied Jack Dawes if he hadn’t been a villain who was going to end up inside. She didn’t want her street-cred with this able, restless young man to disappear overnight just because she was trying to straighten out her life.
She quite certainly couldn’t tell him that she was planning to appear in a play with the same stolid DS Hook who had persuaded her to change her ways. That would be unthinkable, with Jack Dawes.
He said, ‘I had a result, too. Two young pigs who were still wet behind their ears came to see me about emptying the till at old man Joussef’s shop. My mum said I was at home all night and we made ’em look pretty stupid!’
He’d wanted his news to come out with more triumph and more contempt for the enemy than it had. In truth, he was not very proud of getting away with the squalid little raid on a defenceless, frightened man. But he didn’t want to show any of that, when he was trying to impress this confident, attractive, experienced thief.
As if she heard his doubts rather than his words, Becky said, ‘That shopkeeper was roughed up, wasn’t he? I don’t like that.’ She was surprised to hear her own words: last week she would never have dared to voice them.
Jack looked at her sharply. ‘He was knocked about a bit because he resisted, at first. Whined on about trying to make an honest living and not being able to do it if he was constantly being robbed. The Paki bastard had it coming to him.’ But his argument didn’t seem convincing, even to himself. He said limply, ‘I never touched him, myself. Wouldn’t soil my hands with him, would I? We could have taken the money without hitting him, but the lads who were with me wanted to show the Paki who was boss.’
‘I see. I’m glad it wasn’t you who thumped him. But I still think you should leave old Joussef alone.’ Becky Clegg stared at her plate, astonished by her boldness. Then she crushed the crumbs which had fallen off her cake between her fingers and thrust them vigorously into her mouth, as if it must be filled to prevent it from voicing further dangerous new thoughts.
Jack said quickly, ‘He’s a Christian, old Joussef. The pigs told me that. I didn’t know you could be a Christian and a Paki. Anyway, we won’t be going there again. Joussef is safe from us.’ Then, feeling this assurance would be seen as a sign of weakness, he said roughly, ‘Too dangerous, I mean. The rozzers will be watching the place from now on, won’t they?’
‘Yeah, I suppose so.’ Becky spoke abstractedly, as if she had hardly heard him.
She wasn’t looking at him, so he was able to watch her. She sipped her espresso in between her enthusiastic demolition of the huge cream cake she had brought from the counter when she came to sit with him. This was so vigorous that she flicked a blob of cream on to the side of her nose. In that moment, she became the girl he had known when he was at school, with a healthy appetite and a total disregard of calories. Some time in the future, he supposed, she’d be like his mum, watching for grey in her hair, studying her hips and her paunch in the mirror and moaning about putting on weight and needing to go on a diet.
Jack Dawes was seized with a feeling of tenderness for Becky’s slimness, for her youth and her vulnerability. He felt very protective of her. He said without knowing he was going to say it, ‘You should take what happened to you as a warning. Get yourself a proper job and change your friends. You’ve had a lucky escape and you should learn things from it.’
She looked up into his thin, handsome, intelligent face. ‘I’ve already got myself a job.’ She spoke tentatively. It was almost as if she was voicing a confession of failure.
‘Good for you.’ He reached across the table, took her small hand in his, felt it sticky from the cake, but held on to it resolutely nevertheless. ‘Hang on to that job. There’s no future in the way you’ve been living, Becky. You can do better for yourself. You were a clever girl at school.’
She had been, too. She’d been a year ahead of him, seeming impossibly mature and out of reach in his early days at the comprehensive. It was only since they’d left and he’d got himself a reputation as the brains behind his raffish group of lawbreakers that he’d dared to swagger a little in front of her.
‘You want to practise what you preach, Jack Dawes. You’d plenty of brains yourself, when you chose to use them.’ That was all hearsay, because you didn’t know anything about the people who were coming along behind you in the school, but she’d picked up bits from other, younger girls who fancied him. She slid her hot, sticky hand out of his grip. ‘You should stop pestering people like Joussef, Jack. We’re both worthy of better lives than the ones we’re heading for now.’
He smiled at her earnestness. Girls were always saying things like that, even when they didn’t change their own lives. But he found that he wanted to agree with this one.
‘I was only saying the same thing myself, as it happens, after those two pigs had left the house yesterday.’ He wouldn’t tell her that the thought had come in the first place from his mother: honesty was all very well, but it had its limits, when you were trying to impress a girl.
He finished his coffee and squared his shoulders, rippling the studs on his leather jacket. ‘If you can do it, Becky Clegg, so can Jack Dawes. We’ll keep a check on each other - keep each other up to scratch, like.’ He looked at her anxiously, fearing that she would mock this evident weakness in him.
But she was smiling and nodding. ‘I enjoyed those plays we were in, when we were at school.’ She spoke as if it had been in another life altogether, rather than four or five years ago.
He nodded. ‘I was thinking I might give it another whirl. The drama thing, I mean. I’ve already volunteered, as a matter of fact.’ He added quickly, as if in apology for such weakness, ‘I thought it would occupy my evenings, see, get me away from the lads who’ll want to be up to no good.’
She smiled at him, her eyes lighting up. This was the kind of happy coincidence that only happened in Mills and Boon. ‘I’m doing that. I’m already into it. With the Mettlesham Players.’
‘Bloody hell! Well, bloody, bloody hell, Becky Clegg! That’s where I’m thinking of going!’
They gazed at each other, oblivious of the two women behind them who were casting their eyes towards heaven at Jack’s loud exclamations. Then they both said together, ‘It’s Shakespeare, you know,’ and promptly dissolved into laughter at this unrehearsed harmony.
When they recovered, she said, ‘It’s Hamlet. If everything works out, I’m apparently going to be mad and singing bawdy songs. And guess who’s going to be directing it.’
‘Logan the Lech.’
‘Yes! He’ll be glad to give you a part. He thought you were terrific, when he directed you in those school plays.’
‘Maybe. I’m definitely going to give it a try, now that I know you’re in it with me, Mad Becky!’
They went out into the busy street in Gloucester still talking about it, still in the early stages of enchantment with each other’s company. They had walked quite some way in happy, giggling collusion, and were in the long autumn shadow of the city’s great cathedral, before Jack Dawes struck the first jarring note.
He clenched his right hand into a fist, stroked it with the palm of his left, and said, with a return to his old harsh aggression, ‘Old Logan will cast me in his play, if he knows what’s good for him. And in due course, I’ve got a score to settle with our Mr Logan.’
Bert Hook was surprised at the size of the house which Terry Logan occupied.
It was on a slight rise at the edge of the picturesque Gloucestershire village of Mettlesham. It was a square, handsome house in mellow Cotswold stone. Quite possibly the house where the lord of the manor had resided in years past, Bert decided, though his knowledge of architecture was sketchy at best.
Scarcely the residence you’d expect for a schoolteacher, Bert thought, as he paused beside his car at the gate. The view towards the Black Mountains of Wales would be s
pectacular in daylight. There was no street lighting here and, even at this hour, Hook could see the dark outline of the hills beneath the stars and catch a glint of reflected light on a wide horseshoe bend of the Severn in the middle distance.
Logan was obviously well accustomed to being complimented on the house. ‘It’s far too big for me, of course. But I have a man who comes in to do the garden and a cleaner who keeps the house in order. And I have a treasure of a cook who comes in and does the food for me when I have guests. I inherited the house, and I couldn’t bear to leave it after all these years.’
Private means, then, thought Bert Hook. He’d heard something to that effect, in the hushed, behind-the-hand tones which denoted the English reverence for money. There could hardly be a greater contrast to his own Barnardo’s boy background, but envy had never been part of his make-up. His days in the home had bred into him the philosophy that there would always be inequalities, that they were a part of life you accepted as easily as the landscape around you. People had their virtues and their venalities, whatever the hand that life had dealt them; one of the things which CID work taught you was that the essence of humanity was very much the same, once you scratched away the surface veneers.
Terry Logan was as meticulous in his person as in the neatness of his elegant, child-free house. His plentifully waved and luxuriant grey hair spoke of an expensive hairdresser, and he was formally dressed, even in his own home after work, making Hook feel immediately scruffy in the sweater, cotton trousers and trainers he had thought appropriate for drama. Logan wore a lightweight grey suit and a blue shirt and silk tie; the whole ensemble oozed Savile Row to Bert, who in his entire life had not been within miles of that sartorial Mecca. As Logan brought Hook a Manzanilla sherry and set it upon a small antique table beside him, Bert caught an expensive but elusive odour from his host; possibly deodorant, possibly aftershave, possibly even eau de cologne. Bert Hook, who was more used to dealing with toughs with tattoos, was no expert on pleasant scents.
DS Hook went into many houses in the course of his work and had developed a sensitivity to the way people were feeling, beneath the polite introductions and the surface niceties of small talk. Terry Logan seemed to him unexpectedly and unaccountably rather nervous.
The man relaxed a little when they got on to the difficulties of playing Polonius. Logan talked a little about the character, and then they read part of the middle section of the play, where a supposedly mad Hamlet makes fun of Polonius and pretends to think him a fishmonger.
‘You’ll be fine,’ Logan assured Bert. ‘I could tell even from the reading last week that you were going to be all right. You understand the nuances of the text, and that’s always a great start.’
Bert was emboldened by such approval to confess that he was nervous about being exposed on stage, since he had not been there since he was a boy.
‘You’ll be fine, after a few rehearsals. The moves won’t be complicated, and if you’re a little stiff at first, that’s fine for the character. Polonius is full of himself and his plans, but a little out of touch with what is going on around him, what other people are thinking. He is unaware, for instance, of the pervading sense of decay, of the feeling the audience must have at the beginning of Hamlet that “something is rotten in the state of Denmark”. You’ll soon get the hang of it. And you’ll have some seasoned amateur actors around you.’
‘Yes, I suppose so,’ said Bert gloomily. He found the prospect of rehearsals with these vastly more experienced people, and with Mrs Dalrymple in particular, quite daunting.
‘Team work is important in Shakespeare.’ Logan stated the truism with brisk confidence. ‘Maggie Dalrymple you already know. Her bark is much worse than her bite. You’ll need to remember that, in the play, you’re brighter than she is.’ Perhaps he saw the trepidation in Bert Hook’s face, for he grinned and said, ‘Believe me, you’ll find it quite easy, once you both get into character.’ He took a sip of his neglected sherry and said with unexpected tenderness, ‘She’s a good sort is Maggie, underneath her surface bluster. She’ll look after you.’
Bert wasn’t sure about that. He said, ‘Mr Proudfoot seemed to know what he was about.’
Terry Logan glanced at him sharply. ‘He’s a very competent actor, Ian Proudfoot. Might even have made it in the professional theatre, though I’m not sure that he’d have had the stamina for it. He’ll be a good Claudius. I’ve no doubts about that. You’ll be working with him quite a lot on your scenes, and you may find him a little prickly, but he’ll be a great help to you.’ Logan looked guarded, and Hook thought he was going to leave it at that. Then he said, ‘Don’t take any notice of what Ian may say to you outside the play. He’s a strange man in many respects.’ His lips set in a thin line, as if to frustrate his tongue in any attempt at further words.
Bert felt as if he was in some strange dream, sitting here in the big armchair, sipping sherry, and discussing the playing of Shakespeare. He said, ‘I was very impressed with the young chap you’ve got for the main part.’ He didn’t feel he could say ‘the Prince’ or ‘the gloomy Dane’ without claiming some relationship with the theatre which would have been wholly spurious.
‘Michael Carey is pure gold for us. He was a bit of a protege of mine, in the past, so I suppose I can’t claim to be objective, but in my opinion, he’ll do great things at RADA and have a fine career on the professional stage. We’re lucky to get him before his career really begins. In a different way, he’s lucky to have us: he’d never have got the chance to play Hamlet without us. If everything works out as it should, we should all benefit.’ He hesitated. ‘Again, I shouldn’t pay too much attention to anything he says outside rehearsals. He’s a gifted but rather blinkered young man, is Michael Carey.’ Hook thought he should reassure his host. ‘Not many people want to say anything very important or personal to me. It’s an inevitable part of being a policeman, I’m afraid. People are very guarded in what they say to you. I got used to that a long time ago.’ Logan nodded, looking curiously relieved at the thought. ‘We’re almost fully cast now. We’ve got a couple of quite promising youngsters for your children in the play, Ophelia and Laertes.’
Bert nodded. ‘Becky Clegg came in at the end of last week’s reading. You think she’ll be fine, then?’
‘She’ll need a lot of work, but she could be sensational.’ He hesitated. ‘You know Becky Clegg, then?’
‘Just a little. Not well at all.’ He wouldn’t say that their only meeting was a professional one, that in effect he’d saved her from a serious charge and put his own reputation on line at Oldford CID in doing so. ‘I’m glad you think she could be good. She needs something like this.’
‘So does the lad who’s turned up for Laertes. Jack Dawes, he’s called. I’ve directed him before, in a school production, and he’s good, if he wants to be. He’s been in trouble with the law since he left school. Bit of an Artful Dodger - perhaps worse than that, for all I know. I’d like to think that he could help us and that we could help him to save him from himself.’
Bert made a mental note to check on Jack Dawes when he went into the station the next day. He didn’t want to pry unnecessarily, and he’d already been reminded by tonight’s exchanges that this venture ought to be totally divorced from his working life, but if the young man should have a criminal record, it would be as well to be aware of it.
Terry Logan showed him a provisional rehearsal schedule, with the pace steadily accelerating once they moved into the new year: the nights where Bert would be required were efficiently picked out for him with a marker pen. For the first time, he realized what a huge commitment, both in time and in emotional resources, this production was going to be for Terry Logan himself.
He said as much, and the man smiled at him. ‘Hopefully there’ll be lots of pleasure to compensate for the moments of pain. I did two years in professional rep, many years ago, Bert. Nothing is as hard as that. To tell you the truth, I’m quite excited about this. I never thought I’d get t
o direct Shakespeare again, let alone the greatest play of all. And I think we’ve got quality, in the important parts. We’re going to surprise a lot of people, if I’m any judge.’
It lifted Hook to see the man’s enthusiasm bursting through the slightly effete persona which was so alien to Bert’s experience. Terry refilled the sherry glasses, and they chatted amiably for a few minutes about the trials of Bert’s work in CID and Logan’s work in school, themes which signified that the business part of the evening was at an end.
Logan came down to the gate with his visitor as he left, assuring him that he would enjoy a breath of the mild night air. ‘I look forward to working with you, Bert. I’ll be delighted to have your support and protection.’ He closed the car door as Bert put on his safety belt.
Bert drove carefully after the sherry. He had negotiated two miles of winding lanes before he wondered why Terry Logan had used the word ‘protection’.
Seven
Wednesday the fifteenth of November was the date of the first proper rehearsal for Hamlet. The man who was to play the lead felt his pulse quickening as the clock ticked slowly through the afternoon.
Michael Carey was a graphics artist in a small company. The money wasn’t great, but it was the kind of work he enjoyed and the kind of conditions he could live with. Because of his skills and his ability to deliver what was required at short notice, his employer allowed him a lot of autonomy. It was the best job he had had. There were even moments when he regretted the fact that he would have to abandon it, when he went off to RADA.
Michael had a room of his own on the top floor of the old building in Cheltenham, where there were extra windows in the roof and the light was good for his work on the big paper sheets. He used the computer for all the detail of his designs, but you still needed excellent light. He had more or less finished the advertising poster he was working on by four o’clock, as the early twilight dropped in and he switched on the powerful fluorescent lighting over his working table.