Great. He was Diane Dooley’s son. ‘Well, it’s been nice meeting you, Guy,’ I told him, and I meant it. ‘Maybe I’ll come and watch you play football sometime.’
‘Aw, come in and have a coffee,’ he protested, adding: ‘Mum’s home.’
I’d noticed. ‘No, thanks. I’d better be off.’
‘Saturday, then. Ten o’clock kick-off at the Grammar School. You can give me some tips. You can play for us, if you want.’
‘That might be fun,’ I laughed. ‘OK, see you Saturday.’ Annabelle was coming down on the train on Saturday. I was looking forward to that, too.
I hate goodbyes; always drag them out too long. I was just opening the driver’s door when Mrs Dooley arrived at the gate to see who had brought her pride and joy home.
‘Mum, this is Charlie,’ Guy enthused. ‘There was a dead porpoise on the beach, and we both decided to bury it, so the gulls couldn’t eat it. And guess what? He used to play in goal for Halifax Town. Tell him to come in for a coffee, Mum.’
She opened the gate for Guy and looked across at me. ‘My, you have been busy,’ she declared.
I shrugged my shoulders. ‘It’s not often you find a porpoise that played for Halifax,’ I replied. Maybe it wouldn’t have let seven in.
‘Why are you both in your bare feet?’
‘Our wellies filled up,’ Guy informed her before I could think of a devastatingly witty response.
She gave me a long-suffering look that her son had no doubt received thousands of time. ‘You’d better come in,’ she said. ‘The least we can do is find you some dry socks.’
A big pair of white sea-boot socks that probably belonged to the one-time Mr Dooley were produced for me, and we perched on high stools in the kitchen, sipping real coffee.
‘I’m Diane,’ she told me. ‘And I believe Guy said you’re called Charlie.’
I realised that as a counsellor she would have to have taken vows of chastity and confidentiality and God knows what else, so I went along with the charade without putting my rapidly warming foot in anything. No doubt a disclosure that I had consulted his mother professionally would have lowered my esteem in Guy’s eyes by a couple of light years, so I suppose I was grateful for the pretence.
‘Yes, that’s right. Pleased to meet you, Diane.’
‘What do you do for a living, Charlie, or are you a professional grave-digger?’
‘No, I have a proper job.’
She was playing games, enjoying making me feel uncomfortable. Her eyes opened wide, inviting me to continue. Did she expect me to lie?
‘I’m a detective,’ I stated, feeling foolish.
‘A cop! Honest?’ Guy blurted out.
‘Yes.’
‘Wow! Fantastic’
‘Guy wants to become a policeman,’ she informed me. ‘Would you recommend it to a lazy smelly boy, who never does his homework?’
‘Mum!’ he protested.
Careers advice, that was it. She’d had me worried for a while. I shook my head. ‘No, I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone.’ Guy looked crestfallen, as if he’d just discovered that I tortured small animals for amusement. I expanded: ‘Everyone has to make up their own mind. Tell you what I’ll do, though. I’ll call in at the local station and introduce myself, and ask them if Guy can have a day with them; maybe go on patrol. How does that sound?’
From the expression on his face it looked as if I was back on the rostrum, but his mother deflated him.
She said: ‘Tell me, Charlie, do many policemen have tattoos?’
Guy’s face turned the colour of my last bank statement. ‘That’s not fair!’ he exclaimed.
I took pity on him. We men have to stick together when the odds are against us. ‘Sure,’ I confirmed. ‘Lots of them in the Drug Squad have tattoos. They might wash them off when they go home, though. I’m not certain.’
Diane said: ‘There’s a boy in Guy’s class whose father has a tattoo parlour. He’s persuaded several of his classmates to be done. He’s into all sorts of things, but it’s always the others who get the blame. He knows all the right things to say, always gets away with it. Wouldn’t be surprised if he isn’t dealing in drugs.’
She sounded worried, and not without reason. Guy was a good lad, but he was impressionable. I’d proved that.
‘Aw, Mum, not now,’ Guy pleaded.
‘You’re all like sheep,’ she went on. ‘And he’s the one who leads you all to market. He’s a Judas sheep, that’s what he is.’
‘A what?’ Guy demanded.
‘A Judas sheep.’
‘You mean a Judas goat.’
‘Do I?’ she laughed, instantly changing the mood, much to my relief. She turned to me. ‘Sorry about this touching domestic scene, Charlie, but you can see what a problem I have.’
‘Yes, well, thanks for the coffee and the socks.’ I stood up to leave, but turned and spoke to Guy. ‘Did you see the youth who took the money at the Jolly Burger?’ I asked him.
‘Yeah. Oh Mum, he had acne like pick-your-own strawberries.’
‘The same. Did you notice the backs of his fingers?’
‘Er, no.’
‘Well, he had scars, where he’d had tattoos removed. Probably Love and Hate, or something equally edifying. No doubt they were impeding his progress up the Jolly Burger management ladder.’ In Heckley they would have said Fuck Cops, but I didn’t tell them that.
Diane nodded her approval. They walked me to the gate. Halfway there Diane turned to Guy and said: ‘A bellwether, that’s what I was trying to think of.’
‘A bellwether? What’s a bellwether?’
It’s a sheep with a bell round its neck, that all the others follow.’
He pushed her playfully. ‘A Judas sheep!’ he mocked.
They were good to be around. As I drove away I wondered if it would be sensible to introduce Annabelle to them. Could we all be friends, or would I be playing with fire? On a February afternoon a warm homely blaze can be very tempting …
There was another message from Fearnside waiting for me. By the time I’d had a shower and put on some comfortable clothing it was dark. He’d probably gone home by now, which made it a good time to ring him.
‘N-CIS,’ said the girl who answered the phone. The National Criminal Intelligence Service are the big boys, but Fearnside was supposed to be in the Serious Fraud Office. They’re big boys too, but wear better suits.
‘Chief Superintendent Fearnside, please,’ I intoned.
‘It’s Commander Fearnside,’ she told me. ‘Who wants him?’
I confessed to being a mere DI, but she eventually put me through. He hadn’t gone home.
‘Charlie!’ he bellowed, as if greeting a long-lost basset hound. ‘How are you?’
‘Fine, thank you. Congratulations on the promotion.’
‘Oh, that. Long service award, I’m afraid. Nothing exciting. We leave all that stuff to you. Seriously, Charlie, how are you?’
‘I’m OK, sir. Never felt better.’
‘But Superintendent Wood told me you were off sick.’
‘Yeah, but I’m all right. Should be back in harness soon, if the doc’ll sign me off.’
‘So you’re not going out on ill-health?’
‘No, I don’t think so. Everybody seems to be pushing me to, but I don’t want it.’
‘Not your style, eh?’
‘Perhaps.’ I wasn’t sure how much one ought to admit to a Commander.
‘You sound bored, Charlie.’
‘Yes, I think I am.’
‘Well, I’ve a little proposition that is just up your street.’
I’d walked straight into his trap, innocent as a sparrow. I said: ‘Oh, dear, this sounds ominous.’
‘Not at all, not at all. Firstly, you’d stay on sick leave. Any expenses you incurred would come straight through to me. No problems there. It’s a surveillance job, up in East Yorkshire. Your neck of the woods. We can’t afford to have anyone permanently on site, but as you are twidd
ling your thumbs, so to speak … The target is a drugs courier. We’ve been picking his compatriots off one by one, but we’ve left him dangling, see what he leads us to. He lives in a little house near the Humber estuary, and it just so happens that the one next door is up for sale or rent. We’d like to put a tenant into that house, and you’d be perfect, Charlie.’
‘Because I’d come cheap?’
‘As you are already being paid, yes, we could afford you, that’s true. More importantly, you’re the right man for the job. Shall I send the file down to Heckley, eh?’
Up to Heckley, I thought. Up, up, UP! It sounded like bloody blackmail to me. I was twiddling my thumbs, doing nothing, so I might as well twiddle them and do some observations at the same time. Trouble was, it wouldn’t end at that. I’d become involved, embroiled. I knew it, and Fearnside knew it, too.
‘My sick note runs out next week,’ I told him, lamely.
‘The doc would give you another.’
Through the window I could see that the dark sky was rent by a jagged slash of duck-egg green, like an undergarment visible through a ripped tunic. If they could put sunsets on the rates, this place would cost a fortune. I said: ‘Sorry, Mr Fearnside. I intend going back on operations as soon as possible.’
We went through the usual pleasantries, and he wished me all the best, but I knew he was annoyed – people like him are used to having their way. It was a standing joke at Heckley that I was the longest-serving Inspector the force had ever had. Now it looked as if my record would be unassailable, and I didn’t give a monkey’s.
Annabelle wasn’t answering her phone, so I had a beer and investigated the remote control for the telly.
Annabelle didn’t answer her phone all next day, either. The cottage garden had not been tidied since last summer, so I attacked it with determination and all the sharp implements available in Gilbert’s garage. I massacred the perennials without fear or favour: if it was brown, I dug it up; if it was green, I chopped it down. The snowdrops were out and the daffodils in bud. Blackthorn in the hedge around the adjacent field was in full blossom, and a robin and several bluetits followed me round as I gave the borders a hoeing. When I’d finished, it all looked pretty good, ripe for another season of burgeoning fecundity. I decided to leave cleaning out the gutters for another day.
I suppered on boil-in-the-bag rogan josh and thumbed the last-number-redial button at regular intervals. It was about ten o’clock when Annabelle finally answered the phone.
She sounded breathless and excited, and picturing her cheered me up. It didn’t last.
‘Oh Charles, I’ve just arrived home. I was wondering whether to call you.’
‘If in doubt, ring,’ I told her. ‘So, what have you been up to?’
‘I’ve been to London – Westminster – for an audience with Andrew Fallon. Tom Noon took me, and we all had lunch together. It was lovely.’
‘Smashing. Haven’t you been before? I’d have thought that … that when you were … er, married …’
‘When I was married to Peter? Yes, I went a couple of times. That was fun, too. But somehow, this time, it was different. Then, I was Peter’s partner; today, it was me they were listening to. Does that make sense?’
‘Yes, it does.’ It pleased me, too. ‘So,’ I asked, ‘is Mr Fallon still interested in sponsoring your holiday in Africa?’
‘Oh, Charles. This is the part you won’t like. I don’t like it, either.’ She sounded awkward and embarrassed. I wondered if the deal was that she share a sleeping bag with him.
‘Go on.’
‘Well, apparently he can find some money to sponsor the whole trip, in return for me doing some additional research on his behalf. Trouble is, it’s one of these silly accounting situations where we have to be there and back before the end of the financial year – April the sixth. So we provisionally fly out next Wednesday.’
She was right, I didn’t like it. I felt like the man who’d wangled a cancellation on the Titanic. ‘Oh,’ was the best I could manage.
Annabelle must have sensed my disappointment. She said: ‘So I won’t be able to spend the week with you, but I was thinking that maybe I could come down on Saturday and return on Monday. It’s a bit of a rush, but at least we’ll have a couple of days together.’
So there was a place in a lifeboat for me. ‘No,’ I mumbled. ‘It’s too far to come for two days.’
‘But Charles, I can’t go off for a month without seeing you.’
‘Thanks, that’s kind of you. I feel the same. I’ll come back, back to Heckley. It’ll have to be Saturday, though. I’ve promised to watch a football match on Saturday morning – might even turn out for them.’
‘You don’t have to, Charles. I was expecting to come down there.’
‘No. I’ve finished here. I’ll come home. It’s all right.’
‘If you’re sure. Another reason I want to see you is so you can help me buy a camera.’
‘A camera? What do you want a camera for?’
‘Er, would you believe, to take photographs with?’
‘Yes, it was a stupid question, wasn’t it? What I think I meant was: wouldn’t a video be more useful?’
‘Ah, now for the exciting bit.’ She was back to her cheery self again. ‘I told you that Mr Fallon is violently anti-smoking?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, apparently one of his pet campaigns is to prevent the tobacco companies exploiting the Third World. He’s already tried once to have a Bill passed that would tax the trade until it was uneconomical. It really is disgraceful what they do, Charles. The cigarettes they sell over there are much more addictive than the ones available in Europe, and there are no restrictions or health warnings whatsoever.’
‘Yes, I’ve read about it.’
She went on: ‘If I can take some decent photographs – children smoking, cancer patients, advertising hoardings … that sort of thing – he’ll either use his influence to have them published in one of the heavies, or we’ll produce a booklet on the subject. Isn’t it exciting?’
It was exciting all right, like poking a rattlesnake in the nostril with a cocktail stick.
I said: ‘Annabelle, are you serious?’
‘Serious? Why, what do you mean? she asked hesitantly.
‘It’s called spying!’
‘Spying?’
‘Yes! Spying!’
‘Oh, Charles. I never thought of it like that. I just thought
‘These tobacco manufacturers,’ I interrupted. ‘They might wear blue suits and be quoted on the stock market, but they also bribe governments and cause hundreds of thousands of deaths every year. They won’t let an article by an amateur journalist stand in their way.’
There was a long silence. I heard her say: ‘No,’ very softly, adding: ‘So you think I should refuse to do it?’
I didn’t know. I wasn’t sure about anything any more. I said: ‘Maybe I’m overreacting. I’m pleased for you, Annabelle, honestly I am. But I’m worried, too. Now you know what a selfish old bugger I can be.’
‘Yes.’
‘Look. You’ll be all right. It’s just that … I’m missing you. Can we discuss it at the weekend?’
‘Mmm.’
‘And before you go away, will you promise me one thing?’
‘What’s that?’
‘That I can see you in your white-hunter outfit?’
I pictured her smiling, with that wrinkle-nose way of hers that would soon be making the natives restless.
‘Only if I can see you in your football kit,’ she countered.
CHAPTER SIX
As soon as the driver of the Volvo articulated lorry saw the light for the cylinder pre-heaters flicker off he turned the key all the way and the big diesel engine rumbled into life. He watched the display of lights and dials as the air and oil pressures built up, telling him that everything was OK for his long journey to Marseilles.
‘Polish the bike for me,’ he shouted down to his traffic manager, n
odding towards the Harley Davidson parked in the corner of the garage.
‘Might take the wife for a run on it tomorrow,’ the comfortably shaped manager yelled back, with more than a hint of yearning in his voice.
‘She’s too fast for you.’
‘Then I’ll take someone else’s wife.’
The driver grinned down at him. It was the fiftieth time they’d had that exchange. ‘I’ll bring you some fags back.’
‘Don’t bother. Safe journey.’
He pre-selected first gear and eased the accelerator down. There were seven and a half million fags in the container he was towing, and the best part of quarter of a billion stacked nearby. He raised a hand in farewell and spun the steering wheel, easing the lorry forward through the big doors of the bonded warehouse and out into the night.
He stopped again at the gatehouse. The man there double-checked the customs seals on the container, glanced at his paperwork and raised the barrier. He was on his way.
This was the part he liked best: setting off on an overnight run to Dover, with the roads and the weather as clear as his new baby’s complexion. He’d make the ferry before dawn, and the two-hour crossing would qualify as a rest period.
In three miles he’d be on the motorway network that would take him all the way to Folkestone. That was OK in the Volvo rig, but on the Harley he’d have chosen the byways. The bike would have to be sold, now that he was a dad. It was sad, but it was only fair. They’d had some good times on it, but a family meant responsibility, and there were too many nutcases loose on the roads these days.
A motorcycle was waiting at a junction on the left. He looked across at it. Two headlamps, probably a Suzuki. It pulled out behind him and followed, waiting for an opportunity to pass. They were on a long left-hand curve, so he flashed the lorry’s indicators to signal the road was clear and the motorcycle slipped effortlessly by, the rider raising a hand in acknowledgement.
I wish I were going to the South of France on that, the lorry driver sighed.
Two minutes later he was rounding the junction that would take him up on to the M62. A car was parked on the slip road, hazard lights blinking. He changed down through the sixteen-speed gearbox and eased over on to the hard shoulder, so he could pass the stoppage on the left. A man was standing in the road, directing the traffic that way. He was probably from the red Sierra with its flashers going.
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