But For The Grace

by Peter Grainger

  They used to play, several of them, down at the force’s social club – for a while it was a regular Friday night thing. As he watched Dougie setting up the table, Smith remembered all the names, and then, inevitably, he remembered some of the cases that they had worked on together. He could see the faces, see the information boards, see even the names and addresses of people who had been questioned and eliminated, never mind the villains themselves. And at home, on the shelves of his study, were the little black Alwych notebooks that held all that information and much more besides – he could go home tonight and check all the details that he was remembering now, as if his memory itself was being put on trial tomorrow. Those notebooks and these memories – was that what he had to show for three decades of work? How did they compare with what Dougie had managed to put together in the past few years?

  Dougie had finished. He rolled the white towards Smith and invited him to break.

  “It’s been a while, Dougie. In fact, the last game I played might have been with you down at the old social. I reckon I’m in for a caning.”

  He pushed firmly through the cue ball and clipped the inverted pyramid of reds midway down; some stayed together while others flew off towards both sides of the table. Dougie studied the position, one hand resting on the edge, as if this was the opening game of an important match, but Smith had already noticed that the table, though first class, was little used; there were no chalk marks either on the baize or the balls, not even the white, and the tip of his cue was brand new.

  Dougie missed his first attempt at a red, and so did Smith – they both laughed then and the tension had gone out of the game.

  “Are you sure that Jane doesn’t mind us getting away? She’d gone to a lot of trouble, Dougie – fantastic meal.”

  “No, DC. She’s always telling me to use it more – but I don’t know many people who play, to be honest. Chris and I have a game sometimes, and one of the sons-in-law is pretty good. He murdered me at Christmas!”

  Dougie’s first red had gone in, and he lined up on the blue.

  “That’s an easy one to solve then! How does it feel to be a granddad?”

  The blue went in and Dougie walked around, choosing his next red.

  “It’s a bigger deal than I expected. First of all it was just the usual worries, you know – will she be alright, will the baby be alright? But once it’s here… You remember doing it all the first time, but it’s different, different perspective on it, you notice more, how amazing it all is. My grandson, Marcus, only two but sharp as a razor! He…”

  He looked up at Smith and missed the red.

  “Sorry. Grandparents are among the world’s biggest bores to anyone who – well, you know what I mean.”

  But even that wasn’t the right thing to say, of course, and Smith sensed his embarrassment. To save him any more, Smith turned the conversation again.

  “When I got your invitation, Dougie, I didn’t think it was for a game of snooker. I thought it might be more of a boxing match. I thought you might want to land one on my nose.”

  Dougie laughed, shook his head and pushed the idea away with the hand that wasn’t holding the cue. The game had come to a temporary halt.

  “If that’s the worst Chris has to suffer while he’s on the job, I’ll be bloody grateful, DC. He hasn’t told me everything, I’m pleased to say, but that thug was carrying, wasn’t he? It could have been a hundred times worse than a broken nose.”

  “There was a bit of a cock-up – I felt sort of responsible. I wanted you to know that.”

  “Forget it – seriously. I was pleased he was working with you, even though it was a bit strange, to say the least. But how’s he doing? Tell me straight.”

  Smith moved round to size up a long pink after his first red had gone down.

  “I’m impressed with him, Dougie. He’s obviously got his mother’s brains – I must tell her that before I go – but he’s got instincts as well. He’s got the instinct that tells you when something isn’t right. You know exactly what I’m talking about. He’s a quick learner, and he’s got some bottle, too – trying to stop a gang of ex-marines entering that house on his own! He’s a good lad.”

  He didn’t need to say any more. Dougie’s face was hidden in the shadow as Smith bent forward to take the shot but he could sense the fatherly pride, perhaps even the lump in the throat. The pink went down without touching the sides.

  “Oh – I can see you’re out of practice, DC. Thanks for what you said. Obviously I tried to talk him out of it, but, well, you know…”

  For their next few shots, it seemed they couldn’t miss, and Dougie kept the score on the wall-mounted, old-style sliding board with its ornate gold lettering. The conversation died away while they played that well but it wasn’t awkward, it wasn’t as if they had not spoken for ten years. Smith wondered how they had managed to waste all that time.

  “The case comes up soon, doesn’t it? What’s his name? Subic or something?”

  “Yes – Petar Subic.”

  “What will he get?”

  Smith missed a straightforward red, muttered a mild swearword, stood up and reached for his last cigarette of the day.

  “No, here you are, DC. I got these in for tonight.”

  Dougie held out a pair of cigars.

  “No, thanks all the same. I’ll have a head like a block of concrete tomorrow if I smoke one of those – don’t know why. Probably allergic to the high life. I don’t like champagne, either. You go ahead.”

  “How about a brandy?”

  “Still driving tonight…”

  Dougie lit the cigar, and perhaps shook his head a little as he shook out the match – still there after all these years, the self-discipline, the self-control, the self-contained nature.

  “Anyway, the CPS are still buggering around with the charge. I’d say I can’t believe it but I can. We put some hard-faced, nasty piece of work in front of them with a case tighter than a duck’s you-know-what and they go for manslaughter; we put up Petar Subic who accidentally clonks someone and then tries to save his life, and some suit thinks it must be murder, at least.”

  “What’s the plea situation?”

  “Hah! The lad is so full of remorse – genuinely – he’d plead guilty to anything. They could probably get him to own up to a couple of The Ripper’s jobs. Anyway, he’ll be alright in the end – for once I’m not sorry to see Mrs Gloria Butterfield on the case.”

  “Never heard the name.”

  “His barrister. She makes our life a misery sometimes but she’s dead straight. She’ll have the charge down to manslaughter and argue provocation until they don’t know where they are. He’ll plead to that and she’ll mitigate brilliantly.”

  “You involved – or Chris, come to that?”

  Smith nodded and bent forward to take another shot at a red.

  “Informally approached to see if I’d confirm his demeanour at the arrest and in interview, which I would. Even with one good arm, I reckon he could have chucked both of us out of the window if he’d wanted to. It was a bit of a sad story.”

  “What will he get?”

  “He’ll go inside but if Glorious Gloria is on form, not for long.”

  The red had gone down. Smith glanced up at the scoreboard; for the first time he was just ahead in the game. Dougie looked too and pulled a face.

  “I suppose I could sell this and get table tennis instead. You still enjoy it? All that rough and tumble in the courts, all the nonsense? All the politics at the station? Getting worse, isn’t it?”

  Chris might have told him something but it was just as likely that Dougie still had a few contacts on the force; in his line of work he would not have lost touch with everyone. Anyway, they were coming round to it at last.

  “It’s not what it was, Dougie, but nothing else is, either. We get older, things move on until eventually they’re out of sight almost, disappearing over the horizon. Then we sit down by the side of the road and wait for a hearse to come a
long.”

  “Nice!”

  Smith played a very slow, soft shot along the cushion and watched the first black of the game trickle into the pocket. Then he straightened up and chalked the tip of the cue, his eyes fixing on Dougie’s, eyebrows slightly raised, saying nothing.

  “OK, DC, OK. Talking to Chris, hearing about the case, it took me back a bit, made me think. I could tell that you weren’t – what did you say? Sitting by the side of the road? That was the old DC Smith that I used to work for. Whatever it is, you’ve still got it. I reckon it still gives you a buzz.”

  If that was a question, it wasn’t the sort that he was likely to answer – Smith moved to the end of the table to sight his next red.

  “That night in The Blue Boar, if you’d given me different advice… If you’d said, stick it out, stay in the force, I’d have done that. God knows what it would have done to my head after Andretti but I would.”

  The red wobbled in the jaws of the pocket but refused to go down.

  “I always said that Andretti murdered a lot more than four girls.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Innocence? Hope? I reckon you could add them to the list of victims.”

  Dougie sank the red that Smith had left over the pocket and the scores were level.

  “Anyway, you can see I’ve done alright. I’ve done a lot better than alright, and some of it is thanks to you.”

  “And you’d like the number of my Swiss bank account.”

  “I’m serious, DC.”

  The game had come to a halt again. Smith drew on the cigarette and then stubbed it out only half-smoked – in a glass ashtray with the golden eye symbol that he recognized as Dougie’s company logo.

  “Sorry Dougie. I know you’ll find it hard to believe but I’ve grown a little more cynical since we last met. What exactly are you on about, though?”

  “Who wouldn’t be cynical? Budget cuts once a fortnight, endless reorganizations as a result, which are just another way of saying staffing cuts because of budget cuts. I hear they’re shutting down Frosty Winters’ divers?”

  Smith nodded – “Yes, another good bloke peed off forever.”

  “Well, that’s what I’m on about. As it becomes more about targets and budgets – and I know something about that now, God bless Marcia – the politicians take over. It’s less and less about the policing on the ground, it’s all about spreadsheets and the multi-media interface.”

  “I’m not sure about that last one but it all sounds vaguely familiar. So?”

  Dougie was working to a script, or at least a list.

  “And you mentioned the CPS fiascos. If you get past them, you’ve got left-wing judges systematically reducing average tariffs year by year, and a government that claims to be tough on crime closing prisons and putting ankle bracelets on rapists!”

  “Yes… But apart from all that things aren’t too bad.”

  Dougie smiled and sat down in one of the chairs in front of the fireplace at the far end of the room. Smith followed suit and watched as Dougie waved a hand over the gas fire – it clicked and flickered automatically into life, giving out instant heat.

  “Cut to the chase, DC?”

  “It’s always later than you think, Dougie.”

  “You’ve got your full pension now. Get out of it and start picking your own cases, start choosing how many days a week you want to work, and how many holidays a year you’d like, when you like. Talking of which, Chris tells me you still play a bit.”

  “I didn’t mean to embarrass the young folk.”

  “He’s still talking about it, couldn’t believe his ears. It reminded me of that night some of us came down to hear you in that band in the docks – I can’t remember the name, some sort of club.”

  “The old Western Star club.”

  “Something like that. Well, do some more of that with your free time.”

  Smith had forgotten about the Western Star. For a moment he could see Sheila sitting at the bar with her sister, waving to him across the crowded tables, and Buddy Walters on the drums behind him, good old Buddy Walters, also long gone now.

  “You’re offering me a job then?”

  Dougie leaned forward, ready for that.

  “No, absolutely not. Pay all that tax? Work for Argus as a freelance, be self-employed. Some of the lads take the employed route but you’d be daft to do that. Effectively, you could be your own boss.”

  “What sort of cases?”

  He had to be wary of sounding too interested but something in what Dougie had said had caught his attention. He would decide later what it was.

  “Your kind.”

  “Well, I never did get divorced, so-’

  “Everyone assumes that, DC. It’s a cliché now. Yes, we do a few, for the well off – I won’t hide that, it helps to pay the way. But the future is in information security, intellectual property rights, staff screening and commercial surveillance. Don’t laugh, I’m no more tech-savvy than you are, but I can pay for people who are. But they don’t understand investigation – we do.”

  “I still don’t see why you’d need someone like me.”

  “Two reasons. The workload really wants to grow – we’re turning stuff away that we shouldn’t because there’s only Murphy and me – yes, he’s Irish – who can manage the investigation side of bigger accounts. Second, I need to ease off a bit, see more of the kids and their kids, and, well, some doctor’s orders in there as well.”

  Smith raised an eyebrow and stared into the artificial flames; so clever that, you’d hardly know they were not the real thing.

  “You’d be a – a consultant, DC. You could have first look over new prospects and choose what you wanted to work on, manage a couple of interesting cases, all on a part-time basis. Look nice on one of our cards - ‘Consultant Detective’.”

  “I wouldn’t have to do any of that sales training, would I?”

  Dougie frowned for a moment before he picked it up.

  “Sorry! Force of habit now – we sometimes have to bid for the most lucrative contracts. None of that would come your way, DC. I just need someone else I can trust around the place. It’s as simple as that, but some of the work is interesting, really challenging. I think you’d enjoy it.”

  “Well, it’s a thought.”

  “That’ll do for me, DC. Give it some thought, no pressure.”

  Smith could hear a chirping noise somewhere in the room – must be a cricket in here and the fire had warmed it up. Very Dickensian but surely the house was not that old. He looked up at Dougie and saw him pointing back and smiling.

  “I think it’s your phone!”

  “Eh? Oh bugger, the ringtone keeps changing itself, I swear it isn’t me doing it.”

  He slid his finger across the screen and looked at the number.

  “Sorry Dougie – it’s work.”

  He stood up and walked over towards the heavy curtains that concealed patio doors and a view of the floodlit garden beyond; Dougie sat quietly smoking, hearing one side of the conversation.

  “Should be in at two o’clock, ma’am – why?”

  There was an indistinct shout on the line, a woman’s voice, and Smith smiled briefly. Then he looked across at Dougie and raised his eyebrows as he listened to the answer.

  “OK, eight. No, not a problem. Hold on – before you go, just give me a clue, one sentence, what’s it about?”

  He listened again for half a minute or so – it must have been a long sentence – and then gave a name, “Maggie Henderson, definitely”, before saying goodbye to whoever was on the end of the line. He walked back to the seat, a half-apologetic look on his face.

  “Emergency budget cut meeting? First reorganisation of the week?”

  But this time Smith didn’t respond in kind; the apologetic look was already history and its place had been taken a by a half-frown that might puzzlement or concentration or a blend of both.

  “No, it’s a case by the sound of it.”

  “A go
od one?”

  Smith was fiddling with his phone now, abstractedly, trying to find out where the cricket had come from, and how to send it back there.

  “Quite the opposite, I’m guessing.”

  “Why?”

  “Routine autopsy throws up very un-routine result.”

  “How long ago?”

  “About a month as far as I can make out.”

  Dougie sat in silence for a moment, remembering the odd mingled feelings of apprehension and excitement.

  “That’s a pretty cold trail, then. I don’t envy you that one, DC”

  Smith closed the phone – as far as he could tell he was back on wind-chimes but only the next call would make it certain.

  “Dougie, I’m going to have to leave, early start and all that now. Sorry about that. I’ll just go and make my apologies to your Mrs and your accountant.”

  The other man was already on his feet, having anticipated what was coming, hand outstretched.

  “Think about what I said, DC – your own cases, your own hours, your own boss. There wouldn’t be anything like this any more.”

  Smith took the hand and said, “No Dougie, I don’t suppose there would.”

  Chapter Three

  Superintendent Allen looked out across the assembled ranks of officers, all five of them, and wondered whether he should stand when he addressed them. Normally he would do so but with such a tiny group, it might look rather foolish, even a little pompous. After due consideration, he decided to remain in his seat.

  “Thank you for coming in – I know that some of you have altered your hours to make this briefing. Let me tell you straight away that Detective Inspector Reeve will be the senior investigating officer in this matter, and I will be handing over the rest of the briefing to her in just a moment.”

  Smith glanced around but no-one else seemed to notice the significance of that. It would normally be at least a Detective Chief Inspector in any case of a suspicious death, and from the little that he already knew, this was certainly one of those. Superintendent Allen must have a golfing holiday booked, or maybe the salmon fishing season was about to start… either way, this was an important moment for DI Reeve. Success here might bring forward her own Chief Inspector’s interview by months if not years.