The Crime Tsar

by Nichola McAuliffe

Shackleton looked across at the bottles and boxes of pills, the tubes and sealed bags of equipment then walked slowly towards them. When he reached the piano he noticed without any recognition that it was a Steinway. All he knew about the name was that it was famous but for pianos or fridges he couldn’t have said.

  ‘You’ll see a bottle on there, small green one – yes, that’s it.’

  Shackleton picked it up.

  ‘No. Not yet.’ Gary pulled himself more upright and did his best to pull his pyjama jacket closed. When he was satisfied he concentrated on Shackleton again. ‘Tranquillisers. The bottle next to it, the tall plastic one …’

  Shackleton picked it up.

  ‘Yes, that one. Sleeping pills. And the packets of Coproximal, painkillers. You’re ahead of me, you know where I’m going, don’t you, Tom? I wouldn’t like you to get bored. So here’s my proposition. You give me those pills, all of them, and I’ll take them.

  ‘Now, I have to warn you, last time I tried to top myself it didn’t work. But then even you, policeman though you are, will have grasped that one. I think this time though, between us, we could get it right. If you think Lucy would be better off without me, and believe me, I think you’re right, I’ll take them. I just don’t imagine you’d make her happy. After all, Tom, you’ve never made anyone happy, have you?’

  Shackleton knew that was deadly accurate. If anything, he’d gone out of his way to create a sort of unhappiness around him to stop intrusion. To prevent anyone seeing how little there was of him. But Lucy was different. She knew him. She understood him. She had promised never to hurt him. The hopeful child in him was facing the hopeless man across a chasm of experience.

  ‘Give me the pills, Tom. Give Lucy what she really wants.’ Gary held out his hand as best he could. His arm shook with the effort. ‘Or are you afraid? Afraid to kill an old friend?’

  Shackleton’s reply was flat, unemotional.

  ‘I’ve killed better men than you, Gary.’

  ‘Come on then, Crime Tsar. Come on. You’ve got everything else you want. Take this too. It’s easy …’

  The devil looked at Shackleton with Gary’s eyes. Yes. It would be easy. Why not? He might be prosecuted. No, he’d just say Gary asked for the pill bottles to be left by him. The caps? Unscrewed in case he wanted to help himself. Gary hadn’t wanted to bother the Angel of Death.

  Shackleton’s mind worked fast, like a dog rounding up his flock of scattered thoughts.

  He saw Lucy’s face. Her fearful eyes looking up at him for protection and reassurance. He felt a surge of emotion towards her the like of which he’d never experienced. It was so strong he didn’t know if it was pleasure or pain.

  He gathered up the pills and took them to Gary.

  Shackleton unscrewed the caps.

  He put the containers on the tray table beside the bed.

  It was all going to be so simple. Easy. Happy ever after.

  Then he slowly pulled the table until it stood just out of Gary’s reach.

  Gary was trembling, his strength almost gone, but he seemed possessed as he looked up at Shackleton.

  ‘Couldn’t you do it, Tom? Couldn’t you kill without Jenni there to hold your balls for you?’

  Shackleton walked out of the house still hearing Gary’s voice.

  He almost ran back to the now dark and gated train station.

  He sat down on a garden wall. Shaking. Sweating. Breathless.

  Out of the station shadows a scruffy young man with a scruffier dog lying on a cardboard mat called, ‘Spare some change, mate?’

  Shackleton automatically felt in his pocket and produced two £1 coins. He walked across. His hand was shaking as he handed the money over. The young man was obviously high on something, his eyes dull and dilated, his speech just out of focus.

  ‘Thanks, mate. Have a good night.’

  Shackleton squatted down beside him.

  ‘Could you spare me a cigarette? I don’t normally smoke but tonight …’

  The dog looked surprised – it wasn’t often they were asked for favours. It laid its chin on the young man’s knee while he rummaged under his blanket for a Marlboro packet that contained a selection of different brands and two rather suspicious-looking roll-ups. Shackleton selected a Benson and Hedges, the young man one of the thin roll-ups. They were lit with a blue throwaway lighter held in the young man’s dirty hand. Shackleton noticed he bit his nails.

  ‘Thanks.’

  The smoke tasted dirty but it gave him an almost instant wave of pleasure as it infected his bloodstream.

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘You all right, mate?’

  Shackleton stroked the dog’s ears. He took another deep lungful of the foul-tasting smoke.

  ‘Yes. I think so. I didn’t kill someone tonight.’

  The young man was philosophical.

  ‘That’s always a good way to end the day.’

  They smoked in silence.

  ‘Why not?’

  Shackleton flicked his ash before it was ready, enjoying the ritual and companionship.

  ‘Tell me,’ he said, staring across the road at nothing. ‘If someone killed your dog so they could be with you, could you love them?’

  ‘No fuckin’ way.’

  ‘What if you didn’t know?’

  ‘Fuck off, man. They’d have to be a murderer and a liar. I’d rather have me dog.’

  The dog, knowing it was being talked about, looked from one man to the other, straining like a deaf mute to understand what was being said.

  ‘Good choice,’ said Shackleton. ‘Only problem is, because I didn’t kill him, I think he may have killed me.’

  This appealed to the young man and he started laughing. Nothing had made him laugh for days and it felt good.

  ‘Oh man, that’s bad. What’s his name? Me an’ the dog’ll go and get him.’

  Shackleton laughed too. There was nothing funny but his muscles were contracting involuntarily, starting to ache.

  ‘His name’s Keith. Gary Keith.’

  The young man’s laughter now became uncontrollable at some picture in his head Shackleton couldn’t see. He was gasping for breath when he explained.

  ‘He’s a fuckin’ Woodentop. Like me, a fuckin’ Woodentop …’

  And with that he did an impression of a stiff marionette, dancing on its strings, and saying over and over again, ‘Flob-a-Lob. Flob-a-Lob.’

  Both men found this hilarious. They couldn’t speak. Shackleton was helpless, holding his stomach and wiping his eyes.

  Finally he managed to say, ‘Why? Why’s he a Woodentop?’

  The young man wanted to reply. This was knowledge.

  ‘Because that’s my nickname and he’s got the same name as me, Keith,’ he said, struggling to control himself. ‘It’s ancient Scots for Wood.’

  Shackleton wasn’t laughing any more.

  On Monday it was raining. A dull day. Grey.

  Lucy was playing Scrabble with Gary when the lunchtime television news came on. Neither was paying much attention when the announcer said, ‘Today Tom Shackleton, the new United Kingdom Anti-Crime Coordinator, the so-called Crime Tsar, takes up his duties. It had been thought Mr Shackleton would stay in his post as Chief Constable of one of the largest police forces in the country but the Home Secretary, Robert MacIntyre, at a press conference said …’

  Lucy didn’t make sense of the rest of it. She saw the pictures of Tom and MacIntyre sitting behind a bank of microphones talking. Shackleton was smiling, answering questions carefully and quietly. Impossible. The man who had cried in her arms. The man who’d said … what? Nothing really. Nothing concrete, just the emotion of the moment. Not to be carried into the future. Not to be confused with reality. And then film of him going into his new office. Close to Whitehall, close to New Scotland Yard. Far away. Gone. Return to sender. Not wanted on voyage.

  Gary didn’t say anything. What was there to say? Lucy had come back from Hastings with a stick of rock and a determinatio
n not to think about Shackleton. Gary took the stick of rock, kissed her cheek and asked if she’d enjoyed herself. She said yes, the sea air had blown away the cobwebs, then she’d set about clearing out the kitchen cupboards. It was time for a good clear-out, she said. Gary said she was probably right.

  She played her turn: ‘Shit’ with the H on a triple-letter score.

  He added the E in his turn.

  Lucy thought back to her childhood. Surplus to requirements. Tolerated. She thought of revenge, the papers. Kiss and tell, sex, drugs and the Crime Tsar. But where was the proof? The bag of drugs? Proof of what? Incriminating yes, but not of him.

  She had taken a handful of water thinking it was an oasis. Better to have loved and lost? No. Never. Certainly never again.

  Gary wanted to say something but couldn’t think of anything that wouldn’t sound triumphant.

  ‘Gary?’

  ‘Mmm?’

  He tried to sound vague, unfocused.

  ‘I want to tell you something.’

  ‘Lucy, you don’t need to.’

  He looked at her, expecting to see that wounded vulnerability he’d got so used to, but it was gone.

  ‘Gary, do I have WELCOME stamped across my forehead?’

  She seemed to have gone from monochrome to colour. He judged his answer carefully.

  ‘Not any more, no.’

  ‘Maybe I should sell my story to the papers: “I was Tom Shackleton’s Doormat”. I could make a fortune. Oh Gary …’ She covered her nose and mouth with her hand, looking over it as if at the scene of an accident. ‘I can’t believe how stupid I’ve been, how unbelievably cruel. I’m so sorry. I am so sorry.’

  Gary nodded, afraid if he spoke his voice would crack. It was over, this time it was really over. But if there had been a bed in the hospital? If Lucy hadn’t gone to Hastings? But there wasn’t and she had. There was a God.

  They played on.

  ‘Luce? Put the radio on, will you? Radio Three. Let’s live dangerously.’

  Lucy dutifully got up and re-tuned the radio. The familiar and much missed sweetness of classical music filled the room.

  ‘Oh I love this,’ Lucy said as she sat down again, nodding to its lilting delicacy. ‘What’s it called? I can never remember.’

  Gary wasn’t sure he was going to be able to tell her. It was so perfect. Such a sign from the overcast heavens.

  ‘“Sheep May Safely Graze.”’

  The beauty of the music blew through them as if the doors and windows of a shuttered house had been flung open to the fresh air of summer.

  ‘I’ve been thinking, Luce.’

  She looked up. Were her eyes as unnaturally bright as his?

  ‘I think we should sell the house, get somewhere smaller that’s cripple-friendly, and you should go back to work. We’ll start again.’

  Lucy wished she could start again, from the beginning, but this time she’d be elegant, beautiful and ruthless. She thought of Jenni slumped in death. Well, maybe not.

  ‘Where you going, Luce?’

  Gary, who’d never once shown how frightened he was of losing her, was suddenly panicked by her decisive getting up. She’d made a decision and he had no idea if it included him.

  ‘To make a cup of tea. And I think I’ve got a Battenberg cake I put in the cupboard.’ She let herself look at him honestly for the first time in years. ‘Gary?’

  He saw the seriousness in her face. No, he thought, I’ve done all I can, I’ve let my guard down. If you hit me now I’ll never get up.

  ‘Can I come home?’

  ‘About bloody time too. God, it’s been like living with a zombie.’

  They both laughed. The relief at the abrupt end of a dark, fear-filled tunnel.

  ‘I just cannot believe how stupid I’ve been.’

  Gary was smiling as he said, ‘Well, he’s gone now. No harm done, eh?’

  As if they’d woken to find the Bogey Man didn’t really exist.

  Lucy thought about the last stomach-churning months and her transformation into everything she despised. Gary’s patience with her self-abasement, her worship of a false idol. Shackleton had been her Great Love. But Gary was her true love.

  Yes, they’d move away and she’d go back to work. Use her talent and her mind again. Rejoin the human race. Self-respect would be a welcome change. And they would live happily ever after, each careful of the other’s disability.

  She shook her head.

  ‘No, no harm done.’

  ‘Oh, and Luce … I’ve been accepted on to the cannabis programme. I can start next week. And most important, maybe, the stem-cell research group –’ He stopped, swallowing the excess of emotion. ‘It may not work …’

  Lucy interrupted him, overwhelmed with enthusiasm.

  ‘But they can work miracles. And let’s face it, anyone who doesn’t believe in miracles isn’t a realist.’

  ‘I love you, Lucy.’

  ‘Not half as much as I love you, Gary. Thank you. Thank you for putting up with me.’

  They were laughing now, crying and laughing.

  Lucy sat on the bed and they hugged each other, kissing clumsily and laughing all the more.

  ‘Oh Lucy, it’s all going to be all right.’ He pushed her away slightly so he could look at her. He knew he shouldn’t do it but he couldn’t help it, like a murderer drawn back to the site of his crime. ‘Luce, tell me honestly, and whatever you say, I won’t love you any less. If you’d had to choose … who would it have been? Him or me?’

  Lucy didn’t hesitate.

  ‘You.’

  He saw her clear unblinking blazing honesty and had to look away. He had won. Finally, he had won.

  Lucy made the tea and thought how much she’d changed. She would always love the man Shackleton had been but he’d made himself a stranger. He’d rejected her and the pattern was broken.

  In some ways she was grateful to him for setting her free.

  That night Tom Shackleton slept alone in his new London flat. He had everything, he was a success, he had planted his flag firmly at the summit. There were no ghosts to haunt him and no memories to tempt him.

  But no friends travelled with him. His life was now no more than existence and sometimes he felt so cold he cried out for comfort.

  By the bedside, on the bare table, under the lamp, lay the Russian wedding ring Lucy had given him, and when he woke from the nightmares that followed him he’d warm the three gold bands in his hands. Among all his trophies of success, the only one of love. Then holding it tightly, like a child, he’d hope for sleep.

  The sleep of the dead.

  A Note on the Author

  Nichola McAuliffe is a writer and award-winning actress who has worked extensively on stage and television. The Crime Tsar is her first novel. Her book for children, Attila, Loolagax and the Eagle, is published by Bloomsbury Children’s Books. Her short story ‘The Nurglar’ appears in Summer Magic, also published by Bloomsbury.

  Grateful thanks to Sue Clough,

  Don Randall, Giles Smart, Crispian

  Strachan, Rosemary Davidson, Mary Tomlinson, Caroline Dawnay, Nigel Newton, and all

  at Bloomsbury, David Parfitt and Saint Jude,

  without whom …

  First published 2003

  This electronic edition published in 2014 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

  Copyright © 2003 by Nichola McAuliffe

  The moral right of the author has been asserted

  All rights reserved

  You may not copy, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (including without limitation electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, printing, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

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  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  eISBN: 978-1-4088-5635-2

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