The Crime Tsar

by Nichola McAuliffe

  Shackleton recognised what she was doing and almost laughed with relief. She was making the same faces his mother had made when she collected him after a crucifying children’s party.

  ‘Say goodbye, Tom. Give him a hug, Tom. Be nice, Tom, he’s your friend.’

  Shackleton was seven again, in short trousers and red bow tie. He walked towards Carter and put his hand out exactly as he had forty-one years before.

  ‘Bye, Geoffrey. You all right?’

  Carter shook his hand, as lost for the right words as Shackleton, but his eyes were swimmingly grateful for the contact. The forgiveness.

  ‘Yes. Right. Yes.’

  And without thinking the handshake became an awkward, heartfelt hug and Lucy was fussing Carter into the Jaguar and telling Gordon, who Shackleton had summoned from the kitchen, to drive carefully. Then they were gone leaving Lucy and Tom waving like fond aunts on the doorstep.

  They went into the house. Lucy stood close to Tom in the wide hall as if waiting for her reward. She put her arms round him and kissed him very tenderly, very gently, but he pushed away, holding her shoulders.

  ‘Not tonight, Lucy, eh?’

  Lucy felt foolish. She thought she had misread the signs. She had in a way, but it wasn’t indifference that was making him reject her, it was the pain of feeling. Like blood surging into a frozen limb.

  She was quick to make it look as if she’d expected no more.

  ‘Yes. Right. I’ve got to go anyway. Is everything all right? Jenni’s back tomorrow, isn’t she?’

  She was at the door now, opening it before he could.

  ‘Shall I see you in the morning?’

  Tom looked down at her with that infuriating expression of regret.

  ‘I don’t think so, Lucy.’

  She couldn’t stop herself.

  ‘Shall I … see … you again?’

  He shook his head, giving her a ‘This is hurting me more than it’s hurting you’ look.

  ‘I don’t know, Lucy. I really don’t know.’

  She was now in so far she couldn’t go back.

  ‘Do you want to be with me again?’

  He didn’t pause.

  ‘Yes.’

  She felt a surge of hope and joy.

  ‘So what’s the problem?’

  ‘You know I can’t make that kind of commitment, Lucy. Neither can you.’

  She knew she had to settle for that and went home before the delicate web of her fantasy was completely ripped to pieces.

  Tom closed the door behind her. Why had he rejected her? Why did he feel such an urge to hurt her? He wanted her body. Yes. But didn’t want the ugliness and implications of the rest of the baggage that went with a ‘relationship’. He was strong and Lucy was the only person who could undermine that strength.

  Lucy put the kettle on. When Jenni was home they always had a coffee and a chat at about eleven. Nothing so common as elevenses, of course, a cafetière and organic coffee, perhaps some biscotti.

  Jenni came into the kitchen. She seemed more hyper than usual, somewhere near an edge. She had been very affectionate towards Lucy since she got back from Vienna and had given her a lovely brooch. Lucy had almost cried but she wasn’t sure if it was the brooch or the mess her life was in that had caused the surge of sentiment.

  The phone rang. Jenni answered. There was delighted surprise in her voice.

  ‘Jason … darling.’ She winked at Lucy. ‘Oh it’s lovely to talk to you … yes, darling boy, but I’m better now … I understand. I know you do, Jason … Of course you can come home. I don’t know why you went in the first place … It’s all right, Jason. I forgive you, of course I do. Bye … yes, Lucy’ll give it a dust and a hoover.’ She looked across at Lucy. ‘Jason’s room – you’ll spruce it up, won’t you?’

  Lucy nodded. Tom was back in the impregnable bosom of his family.

  ‘Whenever you like, Jason. Bye.’

  Jenni was triumphant. She didn’t need to say anything; that small conversation had put the constellations back in place. She gave Lucy’s arm a little squeeze.

  Odd. Out of character. Lucy thought she looked like a consumptive heroine with her glittering eyes and flushed skin. She’d be the sort who would still be devastatingly lovely even in the final stages of tuberculosis.

  Lucy handed her a cup of coffee.

  ‘Nice for you Jason’s coming home.’

  ‘Don’t you just love it when things work?’

  Lucy searched for an arrangement of her face that said rueful.

  ‘Don’t know – I can’t remember when anything last did.’

  Jenni gave her the silvery bells.

  ‘Oh, come on, Lucy, things aren’t so bad, are they? You’ve got Gary.’

  Lucy thought that was like saying you’ve got plenty to eat but it’s all infected with botulism.

  ‘Yes, but he seems to have given up. He just doesn’t seem the same since he came home from hospital. Sometimes I feel it’s all getting too much. I feel so dowdy. I feel life’s going past and I’m standing watching it from behind a fence. Do you understand?’

  ‘Mmm? Sorry … what was that?’

  And your husband doesn’t want to sleep with me any more, Jenni. ‘Nothing. Wasn’t important. Well, I think I’ve done for the day. See you tomorrow, eh?’

  ‘Yes. Yes … Oh Lucy.’

  Suddenly Lucy had Jenni’s full attention. She turned the full candle-power of her eyes on Lucy and despite herself Lucy was again struck by her beauty. What would she do without it? When would she? At fifty? Later? Jenni wouldn’t let her looks go any more than she released anything that belonged to her. Like her husband, her most valuable possession.

  ‘Would you mind doing a big clean while Tom and I are away? You remember we’re going to Barcelona for a few days – it’s our wedding anniversary. Too romantic. A full day if you could. The living room is beginning to look a bit dingy – I just need you to have everything out and give the place a good going over. All right with you?’

  The extra money would be welcome.

  ‘Certainly. Yes.’

  ‘And Lucy … I, I want to apologise.’

  Lucy had never heard Jenni say the A word. She’d often wished she had but now she didn’t know what it was for. Not knowing what to say she said nothing.

  Jenni was gratified by the look on her face. It acknowledged the rarity of the moment.

  ‘I haven’t treated you very well lately. And I’m sorry. You’re a loyal friend and I’ve neglected you. But I want to take you out for a huge shop and maybe some pampering to make it up to you. What do you say? My treat, of course.’

  I say you’re a patronising, condescending cow and you obviously want something.

  ‘That’d be really lovely, Jenni. I’d love to.’

  Jenni was pleased. She had excised Eleri and restored Lucy. It hadn’t been difficult to say sorry and Lucy seemed so grateful. Life was taking on a pleasing symmetry again.

  Lucy, feeling herself dismissed, was at the front door, her hand on the catch. She opened it as Tom’s car pulled up. No, she screamed with no sound, no movement. No! You shouldn’t be home. You shouldn’t be getting out of that car looking so handsome, smiling at me like a stranger. Worse, smiling at me like the cleaning lady. Smiling.

  ‘Morning, Tom. Are you well?’

  ‘Fine, thanks, Lucy. You? And Gary?’

  He looked at her and was ambushed by a need to protect her. She looked so threatened, so exposed in the glare of his wife’s perfection. She was carrying her rubber gloves and a pile of dusters for washing. It would be so much easier if she wasn’t there.

  He closed the door. When he got the Met he and Jenni would move. Jenni would insist on it – there may be less money to lavish on her pleasures at London prices but her pleasures would be closer, she would be inside them. They’d move away from Lucy. And Gary. And the discomfort of emotion. And love. Where had that come from? It had grown, like buddleia in the cracks of prison walls. Yes, they’d
go away. It would be sad, the end of an era, but better for everyone in the end.

  ‘What are you doing home?’

  Jenni’s question was not accusatory. That made a change.

  ‘My neck’s playing me up and the Home Office meeting finished early so … I’ve got nothing much on this afternoon. Just a discipline starting in the morning …’

  ‘Good. I wanted to tell you – I don’t think Geoffrey is going to be a problem.’

  ‘Geoffrey who?’ He saw the flash of irritation too late.

  ‘Geoffrey fucking Carter. Who did you think I meant? Geoffrey Boycott? Geoffrey Howe?’

  His mouth poured oil.

  ‘Yes, yes, of course. I’m sorry, I wasn’t thinking. It’s my neck. Sorry.’

  ‘Take a painkiller and go to bed.’

  She said it without affection or tenderness. Take a meat cleaver and cut your head off.

  ‘Yes, I think you’re right. I will go for a lie down.’

  Tom had injured the bones in his neck during an armed robbery when he was twenty-five and the condition had deteriorated as he’d risen through the ranks and become more deskbound, causing intense, nauseating pain, not frequently but regularly.

  It was his first big stake-out. He’d long since forgotten the laddish excitement of that night, replacing it with a sanitised memory of a job well done. He had been praised and decorated for his bravery in saving the life of a fellow officer, his neck injury proud proof of that bravery.

  No one on his team had told the truth of that night and the only witness was a corpse without a face.

  Officially Leroy Chandler had held a sawn-off shotgun to a young PC’s head. Shackleton had tackled him using skills learned on the rugby field and in the scuffle the gun went off killing Leroy. Shackleton had injuries to his face and neck sustained during the fight. An inquiry was held and Shackleton was found to be not only blameless but a hero. Leroy’s death caused little furore, possibly because he was a recidivist of some magnitude, but more probably because he was a single black man with no family to challenge the police version of events, all those years before Stephen Lawrence and Michael Menson.

  The truth was that Leroy, cornered by Shackleton, had given up the gun after being tackled. Shackleton, carried away by the heightened mood, turned the gun on the now gibbering robber. They were alone. Two young men awash with testosterone.

  The rest of the squad had hared off after Leroy’s accomplices. Shackleton had never thought about the events that followed until the night with Carter. Then he’d seen himself squeezing the trigger, not intending to shoot but unable to stop himself. Fascinated, hypnotised by how far that trigger would pull back and, as if in a dream state, convinced it would just click and the film would continue along familiar lines. But the slow-motion scene exploded in blood, bone and brains. Leroy’s face disintegrated over Shackleton, and the gun, held in Shackleton’s left hand, like a revolver, jumped on being fired, as any older, more experienced officer would have known it would. It jumped high and hard, smashing into Shackleton’s nose and whipping his head back. When he came to his colleagues had surrounded him and a legend was created.

  Maybe the painful bones in Shackleton’s neck were a manifestation of guilt, as Carter’s pain was over Percy. But he lived with it more comfortably than Carter lived with his. A damaged body was easier to deal with than a soul in turmoil.

  No more macho heroics tackling armed thugs now though: a chief constable was simply a politically astute accountant. It wasn’t the thing to be a policeman any more.

  He turned on the stairs.

  ‘Jenni …? What did you mean about Carter?’

  Jenni came to the bottom of the stairs and looked up at him.

  ‘Do you really want to know, Tom?’

  He felt awkward, he wanted to say yes and to tell her he wanted nothing to do with it. Whatever it was. He wondered what she would do if he said he wanted to retire from the police at the end of his seven-year turn as Chief. That the scheming and climbing were over, that he just wanted to let go of it all and walk dogs on the South Coast. To give in gracefully within sight of the winning post if it meant treading on one more person, making one more enemy.

  But someone had once said to him that he had no rival in making enemies. It was a talent. No one did it better. His face was always turned to the sun. To turn away now and look down the greasy pole at the desolation on which it rested, to see all the people they’d hurt and neglected on the way to this place. Was it worth it? But now, what else was there? It was too late to make friends – he’s proved that in his inadequacy with Carter – he didn’t have the vocabulary. There was no one in their lives who was for decoration, for pure aesthetic pleasure. Just for use. Use, abuse and rejection. It was easier that way. No commitment, no obligation.

  ‘What about Lucy?’

  Jenni’s voice was hard. Her eyes harder.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Lucy. You just said Lucy.’

  Tom felt his face getting hot.

  ‘Did I?’

  He was confused. Had he said her name out loud?

  ‘I … er … I thought she was coming in to clean today.’

  Jenni relaxed into contempt.

  ‘Tom, you’ve just watched her walk out – the dumpy female in the baggy leggings. God, you’re hopeless.’

  He took refuge in humility.

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Shall I bring you up a cup of tea?’

  Jenni never ceased to surprise him. He was expecting vitriol, not tea.

  ‘That would be nice. Thank you.’

  In the bedroom he stripped off to his boxer shorts. Brown silk, expensive. He preferred ordinary pants, the ones he’d worn as a boy, snug, reassuring. But Jenni insisted on these. He remembered bending over to put a log on the fire shortly after they’d married. He was wearing his best trousers, pale-beige slacks, fashionable then, bought by Jenni. She had screamed at him for the visibility of the elastic of his underwear as the trousers tightened. How could he? Didn’t he know how gross it looked? Visible panty line – what did he know about it? She had prescribed boxer shorts and he’d suffered in their insecurity ever since.

  She came in with his tea and sat on the edge of the bed. He froze, lying on his back, embarrassed.

  ‘You’re getting fat,’ she said with no malice. ‘Do you ever think about sex?’

  He didn’t know what to say. They hadn’t discussed sex for years.

  ‘No. I don’t. I might get frustrated.’

  He tried to make light of it, unsure what she wanted him to say. He dreaded the idea she might want him to perform. He knew he couldn’t. Not with her. Not any more.

  ‘Good,’ she said, as if he’d passed a test.

  She put a slender finger on his reluctant penis.

  ‘I don’t want you getting distracted.’ She was watching his face.

  ‘Oh, I forgot to tell you –’ The beady vigilance was replaced by a radiant smile. ‘Jason’s coming home. Isn’t that wonderful? I think he missed us.’

  Shackleton was genuinely pleased but slightly thrown by the ‘us’. It was usually ‘me’ in anything to do with the children. But his pleasure was genuine.

  ‘That’s good. I’m glad. I’ve missed him.’

  There was a rare moment between them of contented peace. They each in their own way savoured it.

  He sipped his tea. The pain in his neck was so bad he was feeling sick; bending it to drink the tea was too much. He put the cup down. She was still sitting by him, watching him, but her look was gentle, almost sympathetic.

  ‘Saturday. We’re dropping in on Geoffrey. In the afternoon. About three o’clock. Nice surprise for him. All right?’

  Shackleton was struck by how sure she’d become since Vienna. Confident. More so than she’d been since before the breakdown but jagged now, like a sliver of glass. And translucently beautiful. Now, as she sat with the sunlight making a halo of her hair, he could see the delicate veins beneath her skin. She was
like a fairy, a delicate figment of his imagination. He felt an almost forgotten desire to touch the perfect blonde hair.

  ‘Why?’

  Again her manicured nail wandered along the shy outline of his genitals. Her voice was as sharp as the nail.

  ‘Because. He’ll be alone in the house looking after the autistic child. Eleri’s taking Peter, the normal one, to a film. Starts at two-forty, something about alien dinosaurs, apparently. So while you chatter away to Geoffrey about boys’ things I’ll take Alexander upstairs to play. They’ve got Sky so you can watch the football, do some bonding, eh? What do you think?’

  ‘I think you’re a witch. What are you going to do?’

  Although his voice was as measured as always, she could feel, under her continually moving finger, the first stirrings of interest.

  Shackleton was horrified at the twitching response she was getting. He wanted to push her away – he did not want to have any intimacy with her. Not now, with this pain, in daylight, with nowhere to hide himself …

  ‘Stop it, Jenni. Please. Stop.’

  It was his penis he should have been speaking to. Jenni was thrilled. After all this time she could still give her husband an erection, even when he didn’t want one. She looked down at the object of Lucy’s fantasies as if it were a rather disappointing chop.

  ‘I remembered it bigger. Do you remember you used to say “make it hard”?’

  He winced.

  She held him in her hands as though praying.

  ‘Save it for me, Tom. I want you to pour all your gratitude into me when we’re …’ She paused, a predatory smile spreading from her perfect lips to her frosted eyes. ‘Just don’t let me down on Saturday, my darling.’

  She kissed the end of it. He winced at the touch of her soft mouth.

  She got up, smiling.

  ‘God, you look like Moby Dick. You really have let yourself go.’ As if this was a well-considered compliment. ‘Get some sleep. I’ll see you later.’

  And she was gone.

  He lay looking at the ceiling longing for the clinging warmth of Lucy’s flesh. And the cold release of loneliness. And Carter? He didn’t want to hurt him. He didn’t want to hurt anyone any more. But what was the alternative? Non-executive director of the local department store and a timeshare in Marbella. No. It had to be all or nothing. He winced. His erection had quickly subsided but his neck was still agony.