by Nicole Dere
‘Each one will have your name on. We’ll have them mounted. You’ll be famous, girls. Maybe you’ll end up in the British Museum!’
Jill stared, completely bemused, and wondered how she could keep this latest degradation a secret, even from Jackie, and how she could live with the shame if it ever became known.
Chapter Fifteen
The climax to Operation Gresham came within days of the bizarre artistic happening which had taken place at the studio, under the creative hands of Roland and his assistant, Verna. However, its wheels had clearly been set in motion several days earlier. There were those later who were inclined to be rather dismissive of Jack Palmer and his reputation as a major league villain. Even when his investigations into the background of Martin Grimmond led him to be suspicious, and then alarmed, he still failed to make the true connection between Martin and his pretty little bit on the side.
But then, who would have thought a lady copper would have bared her all, and sported with such genuine enthusiasm before the all-seeing eye of the camera with the glamorous Liz, and the foreign girls who had proved to be the two vital extra nails in his coffin? To say nothing of the explicit scenes in the bathroom of Gresham Street between Martin and his whore, which took both duty and partnership to an entirely new and inappropriate level of devotion? And then there was the episode of the plaster cast cunts: exhibit number who-knew-what in this catalogue of duplicity, and all in the name of law and order. Jack Palmer felt he had every right to feel aggrieved and deceived.
He came close to getting away with it. When he finally got confirmation that the colourful tales of Martin Grimmond’s villainy were all a scam he decided to act quickly, even though he had failed to make the connection with the law. He would clear the girls out of Gresham Street, pronto, and it was a dark evening when two of his henchmen called at number 41 and ordered the occupants to pack their bags ready for a hasty departure. ‘Your punter’s only a fucking con man!’ one of the men said to Jill, with righteous indignation. ‘The boss wants you all out of here now. Get packed. We’ll be back in an hour.’ He answered Liz’s startled and angry enquiries tersely. ‘You and your bird will be put in a hotel, probably up in London. The other two...’ he shrugged dismissively, ‘the blonde’s being sent up north, Glasgow I should think. Dunno about the other one.’
Liz Grant, tempestuous lover that she was, was also a bright girl and she eyed Jill with a sense of betrayed resentment and mounting suspicion. ‘You said you’d known this Martin bloke for months. You’ve got a lot of questions to answer. Jack’s going to want to know all about him.’
‘But I’ve told you all I know about him.’ Jill’s heart was thudding and the butterflies were going wild in the pit of her stomach. ‘Look, we’ve got to get ready. They’ll be back in an hour. Hang on. I need the loo.’
She was strongly tempted simply to make a dash for the front door and sprint through the chilly night for the sanctuary of number 17, no more than sixty yards away. She had thought about it a lot over the past few days. But instead she bravely turned and fled up the little staircase for the much-needed relief of the lavatory, pausing only to grab her purse from the bedroom. Squatting on the toilet, safe behind the locked door, she ran the basin taps to disguise the bleeps as she fumbled out the number on her mobile. Almost weeping she gabbled out her message and her plea for assistance from her boss. ‘They’re bound to catch on it was me. I daren’t let them take me to Palmer. Please, Ma’am!’
‘All right, pull yourself together, Jill,’ came the response. ‘This is it. See if you can get the two foreign girls out of it. Get them along here if you can. I’m setting things in motion.’ Jackie glanced across at Andy, who was frantically scrambling back into her clothes.
Karyn was waiting on the landing when Jill emerged. The blonde had been in bed with Odette when Palmer’s men had arrived, and both girls were still wearing the silk wraps they had pulled on. Odette was already stuffing her things into a bag, in the bedroom only a few feet away. Karyn stared at Jill suspiciously. ‘Who you talk? You call phone!’
Jill felt the last feeble reserves of her courage ebbing from her. Her weakness was almost like relief. ‘Listen, Karyn, you don’t want to let them take you away,’ she hissed. ‘You mustn’t! Come with me now. I’m a police officer. I can help you!’
Odette had come out onto the landing. Her dark eyes were wide with astonishment. Karyn’s face was stamped with disbelief, her jaw sagging. Odette leaned forward, close to Jill, staring up into her face, her youthful features emphasising her helplessness and need. ‘You? Police?’
Encouraged, Jill bent even closer. ‘Yes,’ she whispered. ‘Trust me. I can help you both. I - ’
Then the world exploded in a vivid, blinding, crushing light, a burst of brilliance as the Goan girl reared up on her bare toes and delivered a smashing blow with her forehead right to the bridge of Jill’s nose. Jill folded in a heap, lost to all but the sickness and pain, and the warm flow of blood and the dizziness.
‘Liz! Get up here! The bitch is a pig!’
Jill’s senses were still reeling. She was only vaguely aware of the rough hands lifting her, carrying her across to a bedroom, ripping down her slacks, hauling off the blue jumper already soaked and sticky with blood. They left her in the white bra and briefs and black ankle socks, flat on her back on the bed, moaning and wheezing through the thick blood clogging her throat and flowing down over her breasts, staining the cups of the bra and dripping onto the sheets beneath her.
‘Get some stockings! Tie her up! Tight!’
Jill’s disconnected thoughts were still mainly concerned with the blood and choking, and the throbbing agony of her face, but she felt the bite of stockings in to her wrists as they tied them to the top corners of the bed, and then tethered her ankles together with equally painful restriction.
‘We’ll let Jack’s lads deal with her. They’ll know what to do.’
‘We can’t wait!’ Odette cried. ‘She was making a phone call!’
The heavy mane of red hair brushed against Jill as Liz leant over her, the face coming into her misty vision. ‘Who were you calling? The cops?’
Jill tried to speak but the blood and mucus grumbled and bubbled. She tried to shake her head and the effort made her moan again with the agony it caused.
‘We’ll get you for this, you devious little cow! Jack will kill you!’ Liz drew back her right fist and slammed it into Jill’s jaw, knocking the bloodied face sideways on the pillow and loosening several teeth, while Jill’s wavering senses swirled off again into that general red vagueness.
The three figures were dressed, their bags ready and waiting on the floor in the hall when a discreetly unmarked van pulled up outside. The anonymous men in overalls who emerged had a key to the front door, and there were others waiting at the back when the fugitives turned to flee in that direction. It seemed a long while to the figure trussed up in the front bedroom before the rescuers got to her, but soon after they did Jill was sitting with a cold wet towel held to her swollen nose, and wearing a clean set of underwear beneath her warmest sweater and skirt and winter coat, speeding towards the hospital in another unmarked car while Jackie and her squad waited for the return of the two Palmer thugs, who duly obliged by walking unwittingly into the lions’ den.
It took two weeks for the dramatic purple-black bruising, which adorned Jill’s features like the Lone Ranger’s eye-mask, to fade to a tired, autumnal-looking pale brown and yellow, mere smudges below her eyes, by which time her broken nose had been painfully manipulated and reset twice.
‘It’s never going to be straight again!’ Jill wailed, her eyes filling with tears as she surveyed herself in the mirror.
‘It suits you, sweetheart,’ Jackie insisted. ‘I love it, honest. It gives you that little touch of mystery, of intrigue. And it’ll make you look a damned sight tougher for the villains!’
Jill’s enthusiasm for the job had hovered dangerously close to total extinction. If it had not been for the special nature of her relationship with her superior, and Jackie’s almost smothering attention during the long days of sick leave which had followed the successful conclusion of the case, Jill would have called a halt to her budding career as a crime buster. But Jackie knew when to highlight the benevolence of her despotism, particularly in the sexual aspect of their association, and soon her subordinate was enmeshed as firmly as ever in the subtle ties that bound her to the older woman.
One element which greatly helped in this was WPC Wise’s departure for the Police College at Bristowe, to embark on the first phase of her new transfer to CID. Jill could never forget how galling it had proved, lying there bloody, battered, and definitely bowed, tied to the bed, to find that the first of her saviours, bursting in like a latter day Sir Galahad, was Andy Wise, grinning down at her as she lay, in bra and knickers and those socks, covered in blood and weeping buckets while Andy finally released her from the bonds around her wrists and ankles. Nor the shame of standing there, still weeping, in that tiny bathroom, like a child who had soiled herself, while Andy, at Jackie’s instigation, stripped her of her bloodstained undies and dressed her in fresh clothes before she was sent off to hospital.
The departure of Andy for the training course was an undoubted relief, in spite of Jackie’s mild admonition to her convalescing junior in the privacy of the comfortable flat. ‘Now look, you two are both going to have to get on together in future. You’re both my girls and you’ll have to get used to it. Otherwise there’s going to be several smarting arses round here. Got it?’
‘Yes, Ma’am.’ Jill shrugged off her dressing gown and let it remain where it fell at her feet. Naked, she moved seductively towards Jackie’s beckoning arms. Sufficient unto the day... and she dismissed her chunky rival from her mind for the moment, with the pious wish that at the college Andy would meet up with some battleaxe ten times butcher and more sadistic than the figure whose welcoming limbs enveloped Jill in the warmth of the double bed.
Though perhaps not at that exact moment, there were other matters occupying Jackie’s thoughts. The net closed and held and Jack Palmer, despite his cunning lawyers, looked set to spend time behind bars, and to lose a great deal of ill-gotten gains in the process. Yet the rich sense of reward for a job well done eluded Jackie, and her efficient team. She should have known, from DCS Sharp’s absence from the immediate post-nicking celebration in the office, where the fizzy plonk and canned beer flowed, that something was up.
The ‘up’ became clear next morning when Jackie received the summons and made her way, breezily enough despite her sore head and sour gut, and the fact that her treasured little lover was lying black-eyed and broken-nosed in a hospital bed, past the demure, slightly blushing figure of Sandra Roberts to the inner sanctum.
Moira showed how she had earned her nickname of Razor by the swift slash of her lightning attack. ‘I suppose you’re waiting for the fanfare of trumpets and Hail the Conquering Hero crap, yes? No doubt you’re expecting to be made up to chief inspector before the day’s out. You’re probably already planning a change of colour scheme in here, and the rearrangement of the furniture when you finally move in and take over from yours truly! Eh?’
Jackie stood there blinking, overwhelmed by the ferocity of the assault, and the ringing echo of that last barked interrogative. She started to shake her head, to search for a denial, but the tirade swept relentlessly on. ‘Well you can forget it, Inspector, right now! You’d better call off plans for your triumph and remember that you are mortal, like the Caesars.’
She held up a slim sheaf of papers and tossed them down onto her desk again, before which Jackie stood, fingers interlaced over her clenched buttocks, her neat and shining laced shoes literally on the carpet. ‘This is a bollocking, a figure ten on a scale of ten, from the Chief Constable and from Bridget O’Keefe, and I shouldn’t be surprised if there’s one from the fucking Home Secretary himself in the mail tomorrow! A catalogue of catastrophe from start to finish; our crime list makes Palmer’s misdemeanours look like the minor indiscretions of a sodding saint! Hardcore on the internet - ’
‘You knew about that...’
Moira ploughed on through the unacknowledged interruption. ‘Your little slut muff-diving. Our two undercover officers shagging on camera. That prick Pope actually had the nerve to claim on expenses for the pad he took your slut to the last time they met for a night’s humping. And these!’ She pointed at a cardboard grocery box on the desk. ‘Have you seen these? Come on. Take a look. Inspect them, Inspector! There’s one at least you should recognise. In any case they’ve all got a name on. Here, look!’
She drew out a white object about six inches tall, an elaborate, twisted shape with a wide mouth narrowing to a thin extension, a bit like an udder. Moira peered at the label. ‘Huh, this one says Liz. Yes, that’s right!’ She gave a snarling grin. ‘They’re plaster casts of cunts. And there’s a fascinating little clip of them being made, no doubt distributed on the porno network. And one of them is of your cute little rookie, Miss Jilly Crystal, no less! But they’ve made us look a far bigger set of cunts than this lot, my dear!’
Her face was turkey-red. She puffed out her cheeks and blew in exasperation. ‘This blast is going to make us famous. Everyone on high is doing their nut to tell us how far beyond the pale we’ve gone, how low we’ve plummeted. There’s all kinds of desperate efforts going on to keep it under wraps, because if the media get hold of all this it’ll hit the headlines world wide. Never mind promotion, we could be queuing up for our Job Seekers’ this time next week. I’m going to have the whole department in, give them the bollocking I’m giving you, and I expect you to back me up. Not a word breathed, not an interview given. It looks like a deal will be struck with Palmer. He’ll still suffer and lose a lot of his rackets. He’ll do a stretch, but it won’t be anywhere near what he should have got. They’ll buy his silence and it’s up to us to make sure nobody on our side lets anything out. Otherwise your bright little graduate bird will be the one sacrificed. We’ll deny all knowledge and make her out to be a right sex mechanic, a tart who’d take on King Kong given half the chance. Right, now get back out there and start the damage limitation, and hope to God we can handle it!’
Reeling metaphorically Jackie left without making any reply, not even a ‘yes, Ma’am’. Distractedly she thought how smug and cellophane-wrapped the lovely Sandra looked as her blonde head bent industriously over her desk.
When she had gathered her scattered thoughts Jackie duly delivered her rockets to her equally bemused staff. All the while she pondered who had betrayed her, for undoubtedly this whole collapsing brick house of recrimination had tumbled on them from some Judas releasing information which should have remained securely within their closed ranks. How had Moira, and those above her, found out so much of the devastating truth of the operation, and the lengths poor Jill, and Tony Pope, damn him, had gone to in the cause of the greater good? Not through her Jill, surely? The poor kid was twisted enough about all she’d had to perform in the line of duty. She would never have been the instrument of her own public shaming. Andy Wise? OK, so Jackie had seduced the gritty little lass into her bed and her clutches, but Wise had simply discovered a truth about herself she had chosen up to now to ignore - like countless other girls, Jackie was convinced. A short and pointed interrogation confirmed her in her belief in Andy’s innocence, and her loyalty, which Jackie found both touching and reassuring. In fact, it was through Andy’s help in the days which followed that the truth was finally and deviously uncovered.
The traitor in their midst was the spotless Sandra, uniquely isolated yet privy to so many secrets. Backtracking, with skilfully disguised questioning, Jackie and Andy came to the irrefutable proof. The final T’s and I’s were crossed and dotted in a confrontation, deliberately low key, where in Jackie’s and
Andy’s accusatory presence Sandra Roberts, impregnable in her righteousness, did not deny her vital underhand role. ‘I talked to Sergeant Mills, and to one or two others. It was obvious there were things going on, way out of line, that Superintendent Sharp had no idea of, and would never have approved. To say nothing of Assistant Chief Constable O’Keefe. It was only right I should inform them of what I knew, of what I learned.’
The look of smugness on those immaculate features made Jackie’s palms tingle with the desire to deliver retribution. But with a warning look at Andy she merely shrugged. ‘Oh well,’ she said evenly, ‘I suppose you only did what you thought was right. Shame, though.’ The insufferable smile of those perfect lips sealed Sandra’s fate.
‘Well, looks like our partners have deserted us, eh, Derek? I knew you wouldn’t want to see that arty-farty play at the Coliseum, and neither did I, so it was my idea for you to come round and keep me company while Jill and your Sandra sat through that tripe. A sort of variation on wife swapping, eh?’
She gave her hearty bonding laugh, and Derek smiled to hide his fastidious disapproval. Jackie Barlow was such an exaggerated version of ‘butch’ it was almost a parody. At least Superintendent Sharp was an elegant, sophisticated woman, not some would-be male impersonation. He couldn’t stand it if his wife had fallen for someone as obvious and gross as this figure playing host. As always his mind registered his distaste at the acknowledgement even to himself of the truth of Sandra’s relationship with Moira Sharp.
Her lesbian affair was ‘that which must not be named’ between Sandra and himself, and it never had. In fact, there were times when Derek himself was almost convinced by their playacting. He could not remember now when he had discovered the truth, or been told it. Faithfully both he and Sandra rigorously maintained the fiction of his innocence; that he still did not know what happened when Sandra took herself off, as she did so regularly, for some extra hours of ‘overtime’, or to some mythical function or other, and returned lethargic or almost somnambulant from her lover’s bed, and sometimes carrying a telltale hint of another’s perfume. Their own sexual relationship was indubitably one of dominatrix and slave. It was the only way that coition could take place, and as essential for Sandra as it was for himself.