Merely Players

by J M Gregson

  ‘I wouldn’t wish to endure a hostile cross-examination about police work.’

  Another, less strident, laugh; more of a chuckle, this time. ‘Have you seen Gerry Clancy’s programme, Chief Superintendent Tucker?’

  ‘Not often, no. Scarcely at all, in fact. Pressure of work doesn’t allow me to—’

  ‘Gerry doesn’t go in for hostile cross-examinations. We leave those to Panorama and Newsnight. Mr Clancy is no Paxman. This is a light-hearted afternoon programme.’

  ‘I see. May I ask who else would be taking part?’

  ‘Well, that isn’t finalized yet. I’d like you to treat this as confidential at the moment, but we’re hoping to secure Adam Cassidy for the big interview on that afternoon.’

  ‘I see.’ Thomas Bulstrode Tucker strove to control an excitement he felt was quite unsuitable in one of his rank.

  ‘He’s the star of the Alec Dawson series.’

  ‘Yes, I’m well aware who Adam Cassidy is.’ Barbara refused to miss an episode. She considered Cassidy a tremendous ‘hunk’. She would be mightily impressed to see him sharing a sofa with the star.

  ‘Sorry! In that case, you will appreciate that it would be quite a coup for us if we get him. With the advance publicity involved, you’d have quite a big audience for whatever you chose to say about police work. If we get someone as big as Adam Cassidy to appear, we’ll probably only have two guests on that programme – you and he.’

  ‘I see. Well, I shall certainly consider your offer. The police service gets a lot of bad publicity, most of which is quite unjustified. If I can do anything to put that right, I would feel obliged to consider it.’

  ‘There’d be a fee.’

  Tucker fought back the impulse to ask how much. ‘That is not a consideration. I shall have to clear this with my chief constable. If he has no objections, I would see it as my duty to appear.’

  Pat Dolan wanted to tell him to loosen up, that this was a bit of fun in the afternoon, that his function was merely to be the PC Plod foil for a series of stories and bon mots from Cassidy. But she had sensed despite his formal tone that he was hooked; the big showbiz name had its magic, even for a staid chief superintendent who should know better. ‘I shall take that as a qualified yes, Mr Tucker. I’ll be in touch again as soon as I have further details for you.’

  A sharp, cold, November Saturday. The market in Brunton has been a covered one for many years now, but the market hall is chilly today. The men and women serving fish and vegetables wear mitts and flap their arms across their chests between serving their early customers. The nation moved its clocks an hour back and returned to Greenwich Mean Time a fortnight ago; the town has its first ropes of coloured lights and the shops their first posters announcing that Father Christmas will be in attendance from the beginning of December.

  Lucy Peach is shopping, secretly enjoying the novelty of being a housewife. She is meeting her mother for lunch at twelve; she has resigned herself to being quizzed about married life and her views on producing grandchildren at an early date. Percy Peach is playing in the monthly medal at the North Lancs Golf Club, seeking to reduce his already respectable handicap of eight. He sniffs the cool, clear air and looks to the north, to the heights of Ingleborough and Pen-y-Ghent: the mountains which look surprisingly close as the sun climbs a little higher. Not many better places to be on a day like this, he remarks to his companion; it is always easier to feel like this after landing a 5-iron on to the green at a par three. Percy has always preferred the cool sun of winter to the more torrid temperatures of June and July.

  Ten miles north of Peach, on the moors which rise beyond Clitheroe and Waddington, Adam Cassidy is also relishing the day and its sport. There is a carpet of frost up here this morning, but the whiteness is disappearing now, except in the shadow of the dry stone walls. There is the first dusting of snow on the top of the great mound of Pendle Hill to the east. A great morning to be alive and on the moors, he and his companions assure themselves repeatedly.

  Adam had never thought when he was a boy that he would join those shooting grouse on the moors: only toffs whose lifestyle was totally outside his experience did that. Yet that seemed to him a very good reason why he should be here now. He held his shotgun in the crook of his arm and chatted happily to the landowner who had invited him to shoot with his party. Adam wasn’t an expert shot, but he didn’t need to be. There were others here who were as bad as him – and in one case plainly worse. Shooting was expensive, and the invitation to participate was used to cultivate acquaintance or to return favours. In his case, it was one of the more acceptable rewards of celebrity. People, even people who had standing and influence, wanted to be seen with you, wanted to feel that they were in touch with the glamorous world of show business and television. So why not take advantage of that, when it could bring pleasure to others as well as yourself?

  It was his third shoot in all, but his first of this autumn. One of his first television appearances as a young actor had been as a servant in a play about Edward VII and Lillie Langtry. His function had been to hand the portly monarch a loaded gun and then say ‘Good shot, Your Royal Highness!’ whilst the corpse of a bird plummeted in the background. He remembered it vividly and with affection, not least because the well-known actress playing the Jersey Lily had taken him into her bed for a brief fling. That had been a memorable experience in itself. More importantly, it had raised the standing of the unknown young bit-part player on the gossip grapevine which flourished amongst actors and directors. Being noticed was very important at the outset of a career, and young Cassidy had taken full advantage of the opportunities which resulted.

  He brought down a couple of grouse early on, which established his credentials and made the rest of the day more enjoyable. He enjoyed the trappings of the day more than the shooting itself. In a relatively small party, he was able to relax, almost in fact to be himself. He was so much on show nowadays that he had almost forgotten exactly who that self was. But there were no cameras here, no journalists looking for a juicy quote and waiting all day for a moment of indiscretion. His companions enjoyed the fact that he was in the party, that they would be able to drop casually to others in the coming week that they had been ‘shooting with Adam Cassidy at the weekend’, but they weren’t seeking to trip him up.

  He enjoyed the moment when they opened the hampers and brought out the home-made pies and sandwiches and the booze. He enjoyed sitting with his host on a rock in the heather and looking at Pendle Hill on the one side and the fells which ran away towards lower ground and eventually the Ribble estuary and the sea on the other. He had expected to be among the ‘county set’, but the party was much more mixed than that. There were only two women, one of them the wife of the owner and the other one a twenty-five-year-old niece of his, who made a point of seeking out the man who played Alec Dawson, She was thoroughly star-struck. That pleased Adam, though he wouldn’t take it any further. He didn’t want to risk antagonizing his host, and there were ample opportunities for him elsewhere.

  There was also a young farmer, who was one of the few who didn’t cultivate Adam’s acquaintance. He had the healthy open-air countenance you would expect and a pronounced Lancashire accent which in this company you wouldn’t. Adam thought he’d seen him somewhere before, but he couldn’t be certain where – he met so many people, he said with a smile to the man of whom he made his enquiry. Paul Barnes was the farmer’s name. He farmed in the valley over there, said his informant, gesturing with a wide sweep of his arm towards the Trough of Bowland. ‘Round my neck of the woods, then,’ said Adam.

  He remembered then where he had seen Barnes. It was on one of his rare excursions to the school gates with his children. Must be months ago now. Paul Barnes had been there and he must surely remember him. Adam wondered why he did not come across and speak to him, then spoke again to the owner’s pretty niece and forgot the matter entirely.

  He remembered then where he had seen Barnes. It was on one of his rare excursion
s to the school gates with his children. Must be months ago now. Paul Barnes had been there and he must surely remember him. Adam wondered why he did not come across and speak to him, then spoke again to the owner’s pretty niece and forgot the matter entirely.

  SIX

  The meeting with the Muslim community which involved Chief Superintendent Tucker and Detective Chief Inspector Peach took place on the sixteenth of November. It proved far more successful than Percy had dared to hope.

  The theme of the meeting was law and order in the town, and the senior policemen shared a platform with three prominent local councillors, one of whom was himself an Asian. The questions and the answers were for the most part constructive. The audience listened politely, though it was sometimes difficult to be certain how many of them agreed with the arguments being put. Under pressure, Percy would have had to admit that as a partnership, he and Tommy Bloody Tucker had on this occasion made an effective team. The older man had briefed himself well on the general lines of police policy and avoided any gaffes, whilst Peach was able to illustrate the generalities with particular instances from cases the CID had handled in the last couple of years.

  Although the session was conducted in a hall adjoining the largest mosque in the Asian quarter of Brunton, it had been billed as an open meeting. Predictably, a dozen or so National Front party members made a noisy entry into the hall two minutes before the meeting was due to begin. There was a strong presence of uniformed police around the doors, but at Peach’s insistence the Front group were allowed to remain, on condition that they conducted themselves in an orderly manner.

  Most of these men – there were no women in the group – were known to Peach from previous confrontations; some of them had convictions for affray in the constant frictions between white and Asian youths in the town. They were no more pleased to see DCI Peach on the platform than he was to see them filling a group of seats at the side of the hall and conferring with each other about how they could best make mischief.

  For twenty minutes, things went smoothly. Tucker gave a surprisingly succinct summary of the policing of this predominantly Muslim area of the town and outlined some of the problems. Many of these arose when male police officers had to deal with female Muslims, particularly when the wearing of the Burka made communication difficult and led to suspicion on both sides. There were career opportunities for Asian police officers, who were desperately needed not only in Brunton but in most urban areas of the country.

  The National Front youths had grown increasingly impatient during these exchanges. A young man with a union jack on his tee shirt and tattoos on his forearms now called out, ‘These buggers are too busy collecting welfare benefits to work for a living in the police!’

  A woman town councillor had the figures ready to refute a charge she had obviously met many times before. She quoted figures to show that among Asian males of working age there was less unemployment than among other ethnic categories and that relatively few Asians were receiving council tax support.

  It was when the young man’s neighbour was frustrated by this calm statistical refutation that he shouted, ‘They’re all on the fucking fiddle!’ Counter-shouts arose and chaos threatened.

  Peach rose to his feet and waited for the relative silence which eventually fell. He looked with undisguised disgust at the group who had come to disrupt this meeting. ‘Some of you still purport to be Christians. They at least should recall their leader’s direction that it should be those without sin who cast the first stones. I recognize in your group at least three faces who have been prosecuted for falsely claiming benefits.’

  The group looked at each other in confusion. There were mutterings about ‘bloody Peach’ and worse. Then the youngest of the group, a pimply youth not long out of school, glared at the rest of the hall and said, ‘These bloody people make no fucking attempt to integrate!’

  A hand went up at the other side of the room. A small, elderly white woman whom neither Peach nor Tucker had noticed before rose to her feet. Percy noticed her now, not least because his new wife was sitting beside her, looking up with consternation at her mother. Agnes Blake was seventy, but no more afraid of speaking her mind than she had ever been. ‘One of the very first Pakistani visitors to this town was certainly prepared to mix. His name was Fazal Mahmood.’

  There was bafflement among the mass of her audience, though a few of the bearded Muslim elders around the room nodded their recognition of the name. Mrs Blake hastened to explain. ‘Fazal Mahmood was one of the leading cricketers of the world – perhaps the greatest seam bowler of his day. He won Pakistan their first Test victory in England at the Oval. But he knew how to mix. He was a very popular man when he was a professional at East Lancs, and he enjoyed his time in the town. My late husband played against him and knew him.’

  The youth whom she had answered was baffled by this unexpected intrusion. He shouted across the hall as belligerently as he could, ‘You’re talking about before I was bloody born, lady!’

  Peach spoke decisively from the platform. ‘Before I was born too, laddie. But the lady has a point. One of the first Muslims the town had seen was welcomed here and was happy to mix with the natives. Nowadays, we’ve lost that. No one pretends mixing’s easy with the numbers involved, but it’s the only thing which will work in the long term.’

  He was interrupted by a voice from the National Front group. ‘It’s not us as won’t bloody mix, Peach! We had to pass under that damn great arch over the road to get here tonight. Told us we were entering the Paki ghetto, that did!’

  ‘There are religious reasons for that arch!’ a Muslim voice from his left on the platform reminded him.

  Peach held up his hands as the shouting around the hall threatened to get out of hand. ‘I know there are, but there are political reasons as well. I agree with our young friend on that arch. It’s the wrong sort of symbol. It’s crystallizing the very divisions we are saying tonight that we want to abolish. The children of Brunton are being educated together, going out from school into a common world. We should be working to break down barriers, not erecting new ones.’

  He was surprised at how hard he was breathing. A voice from his left whispered, ‘Easy, Peach!’ and for once he was glad of Tucker’s intervention.

  The National Front leader was on his feet now, full of righteous indignation. ‘These bastards are trying to blast everything we stand for to kingdom come! And you’re asking us to lie back and take it!’

  The man’s violent words reminded Peach of a poem from his past, proclaiming that in dangerous times,

  ‘The best lack all conviction, while the worst

  Are full of passionate intensity.’

  Yeats, he thought. And what an appropriate and prophetic summary of the thirties and the rise of fascism. But that didn’t matter now. He felt the charged atmosphere in the hall and forced himself to be calm, to speak quietly, to avoid reducing himself to a yeller of meaningless slogans. ‘This is an important time for all of us, for Christians and for Muslims, for atheists and for agnostics. I, along with everyone on this platform tonight, am appealing for calm and for reason. With all their faults, this country, and this town within it, are places which are worth preserving: places where we want to live in peace alongside each other. The National Front voice we have just heard is determined on a violent reaction to the changes we see around us. There is also a tiny minority of Muslim people who are interested in furthering an ideology by violent means. There may even be some such people in this hall tonight. If anyone knows of cells of terrorism, I urge them to declare their knowledge to the police. We need the cooperation of the Muslims in our community to eliminate this murderous violence. I cannot urge too strongly that all people with moderate views should help the rest of their communities by declaring any knowledge of planned murder and mayhem at the earliest possible moment!’

  Peach had surprised himself by the rising volume and passion of his speech. He had intended when he came here to listen and scarcely
speak at all, but the combination of the National Front faction and the startling presence and brave words from Lucy’s mother had roused him. The cynical, worldly-wise policeman was his preferred stance, but the words from a sturdy woman who could scarcely have spoken in public before had brought a compulsion in him to support her. Remarkably, his words seemed to have worked. There was sporadic applause from his largely Asian audience. Some of it was no more than politeness, but there were pockets of genuine enthusiasm, much of it among the older sections.

  A bearded man in the front row rose to his feet and turned to face the mass of people. He was obviously known to most of them; they fell instantly silent. ‘What the officer says is right. If we want to be a part of the community, an integrated part, we have to denounce terrorism and the fanatics who use it. There may be people in this hall tonight who are aware of plots against the state. If any of you know anything about these cells of murderous violence, you must tell the authorities. That is not only fair to them but fair to us, the ordinary Muslim people who want to practise our religion and live at peace in this country. Every act of terrorism sets back our cause.’

  There was general applause for this. Everyone seemed to be clapping save the National Front group. The chairman on the platform had the good sense to wrap things up quickly, sensing the mood of the meeting and divining correctly that this was as far as they could go tonight. He made a brief reference to the ways of voicing local grievances, then reiterated the general need for cooperation and the benefits this would bring to all.

  Peach had for ten years been accustomed to going home alone and making his own assessments of the work of the day. As he left the hall and his pulse returned to its normal rate, he found the presence of a wife a most pleasing change.