The Code

by Nick Thripp

  I waited till my mother was on her own in the kitchen.

  ‘A storm’s brewing,’ she said as I perched on a stool. ‘The weather forecast is terrible.’

  ‘Mum, Rachel and I are living together.’

  She continued to bustle about, clattering saucepans and peering at the boiling vegetables for a couple of minutes before she looked at me.

  ‘Is she from a nice family?’ She opened the grill and pulled out the pork chops, already leathery and blackening around the edges. This meal was not going to put my father in a good mood.

  ‘She’s a vicar’s daughter.’

  My mother’s face brightened. ‘How lovely, dear.’ She slopped some cabbage onto each plate and I wondered whether McDonalds had opened in Feston yet. My mother carried two plates into the dining-room where my father was already sitting at his place, a napkin tucked into his collar. She plonked one in front of him and sat down. He eyed it suspiciously and, without saying anything, poured himself a large whisky from the bottle at his elbow. We ate the meal in silence, broken only by the odd request to pass the apple sauce or the salt. Outside the wind had started to howl.

  ‘This could bring some trees down,’ my father said as though he found the thought comforting.

  I left most of my food.

  ‘I hope you’re not sickening for something, dear,’ my mother said. ‘Perhaps it’s the weather.’

  ‘The boy doesn’t appreciate good home-cooked food,’ my father said. ‘I suppose you spend all your time in Wimpys eating all that hamburger muck.’

  ‘On the contrary, I never set foot in one of those places. I am partial to the odd Big Mac though.’

  He knocked back his drink and poured himself another. My mother removed the dirty plates and brought out some tinned fruit salad awash with condensed milk. When my mother got up to clear away, I decided it was time to tell my father. His face was bright red and his eyes bloodshot. He listened in silence, staring at the half-empty whisky bottle.

  ‘Can’t be up to much or she wouldn’t be associating with you.’

  I took a deep breath and pointed out she’d been to Cambridge.

  ‘They let anyone female in these days just to get the numbers up,’

  ‘Hardly, Dad—’

  ‘Which college?’

  I knew he thought only two were any good, Trinity because Prince Charles had been there, and King’s because of the Christmas Eve carol service.

  ‘Girton,’ I replied. My father’s face became a gargoyle’s mask.

  ‘The place that’s full of blue-stocking dykes?’

  ‘It’s co-ed now, Dad.’

  ‘Men at Girton! What’s the world coming to?’

  ‘Lots of colleges are co-ed. It’s called equality. The days when one half of the population dominated the other because of its chromosomes are long gone. We compete on merit now.’

  ‘Ridiculous nonsense. Like that Thatcher woman becoming Prime Minister.’

  We lapsed into a tense silence which lasted until I excused myself to help with the washing-up.

  The wind during supper was the vanguard of a storm of hurricane-like proportions, which raged all night and drove a cargo vessel ashore at Feston. The next day, when the wind dropped, the promenade was full of people gawping at the wreckage. The beach was littered with debris and large wooden crates carrying various types of electrical goods, and had been closed to the public. While a portly constable sat in the comfort of a nearby patrol car, a young police cadet was left with the task of preventing the crowd from spilling down and scavenging. I didn’t give him a second glance, until I realised my mother was talking to him, the young man was Neil, and he was waving us through as though we were dignitaries.

  ‘Why the fuck are you dressed like that?’ I asked him.

  ‘Meet me for a beer later and I’ll tell you.’ He opened the cordon for us. ‘The Dolphin at eight?’

  I nodded, impressed by this brazen display of police corruption, and we went onto the beach to take a closer look at the stranded vessel and its cargo.

  *

  That afternoon I passed by Mrs Beart’s ground floor flat. The windows looked different although I couldn’t exactly say why. A woman appeared in the small front garden, armed with a pair of secateurs. She saw me staring.

  ‘Can I help you?’ Her firm voice had a forbidding tone.

  ‘Yes, er, I mean possibly… is Mrs Beart in?’

  She looked at me as though I’d uttered some profanity.

  ‘Mrs Beart doesn’t live here anymore. She hasn’t for months.’

  ‘Do you have a forwarding address?’

  The scowl on her face deepened.

  ‘I believe she’s taken up residence in London somewhere.’

  *

  The Dolphin was crowded that evening, and we were lucky to get a table.

  Neil bought the first round and threw in a bag of crisps to show he wasn’t broke.

  ‘I’d never seen you as a rozzer, Neil,’ I said. ‘What made you accept the Queen’s shilling or whatever it is you plods do? Especially after all the scorn you’ve heaped on them in the past.’

  He flinched slightly.

  ‘After the business folded I had a mountain of debt. Then I saw an advert promising accelerated promotion for graduates, so I applied. I start at Hendon soon.’ His chest puffed up slightly.

  ‘To guard well-heeled bookies from aggrieved punters?’

  ‘Hardly. The dog track disappeared years ago. No, it’s the police training college I’m going to. I’m doing an initial six months’ course.’

  The idea that the police were trained intensively came as a surprise. I’d assumed a couple of hours’ schooling in controlling traffic and half an hour running through the arrest procedure would have sufficed.

  ‘If you do well, there’s nothing to stop a graduate from becoming chief constable by the age of forty-five.’

  While there was little I’d have liked less than to parade around in uniform and interact with undesirables, possibly even risking physical violence, Neil was looking so much more like his old self that I didn’t want to deflate him.

  ‘And in the meantime, I’m assigned here so I can live at home while I pay off some of my debts.’

  ‘Don’t worry mate. Once you graduate, a couple of hefty bribes will clear them completely.’

  ‘It’s slander like that which gives the force a bad name,’ he said. ‘I’ve met some really decent blokes since I joined. I’d trust them with my life.’

  ‘You may have to one day, mate. I hope they live up to your faith in them.’

  I sensed Neil’s annoyance. Tough! He deserved a bit of ragging after this volte-face. In his youth, he’d been the most strident critic of the police I’d ever met.

  ‘We policemen stick by each other. It’s like an unwritten code. Support your fellow officers at all times.’

  ‘Thought that was only when you’re fitting someone up for a crime they didn’t commit.’

  ‘It’s your round,’ Neil said, pushing his empty glass towards me, ‘and if you don’t get them in smartish, I’ll bloody well nick you. Oh, and by the way, get me some salted peanuts.’

  ‘Well in keeping with the finest traditions of British law enforcement, Neil.’

  As I stood up, I chanced to catch sight of a familiar figure out of the corner of my eye. It was Ronald Carrot-Top. Later, on my way back from the gents I took a slight detour so I’d pass close to him. He was locked in an animated conversation with a brunette with lots of hair piled up on her head and a very tight skirt stretched thinly over her ample bottom.

  ‘Hello Ronald.’

  He looked at me without any sign of recognition. I prompted him and he said, in a vague, uninterested way, ‘All right?’ and resumed his conversation with his lady friend without waiting for an answer.
/>   ‘Still friends with Mrs Beart, are you?’ I asked.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘You know, petite lady, dark hair, slim build, violet eyes.’

  ‘Never heard of her.’

  He was either a supremely gifted actor or telling the truth.

  ‘See anything of Erica these days?’ I asked.

  His brow furrowed and he drew breath as though about to say something.

  ‘Who’s Erica?’ the brunette asked. He took a few seconds to answer.

  ‘The wife,’ he muttered, his eyes fixed on the floor.

  The woman took half a step back.

  ‘Congratulations! I hadn’t heard.’ I seized his hand and pumped it up and down. ‘How is she?’

  ‘Up the duff.’ He wrenched his hand out of mine and glared at me.

  ‘Your first?’ I asked, estimating how long it would take me to reach the door.

  His shoulders sagged and his face seemed to crumple. ‘Number three.’

  ‘Great stuff! Well done!’ I said in a patronising voice as the brunette receded rapidly into the background. ‘Please give her my best wishes, and you take care.’ I patted him on the shoulder in an avuncular manner.

  He stared at the pub’s door closing behind the brunette and then, with a start, gave the appearance of waking from a dream and squared up to me.

  ‘Now I remember you. You’re that fat little turd who was always hanging around. What’s your fucking game, crashing in on other people’s conversations, you wanker?’

  I held my hands up.

  ‘Just saying hello, Ronald. Old times’ sake and all that. No harm meant.’ I backed off quickly and made my way back to Neil.

  ‘See that one over there, the one with the red hair?’

  Neil nodded.

  ‘Recognise him?’

  Neil shook his head. He’d obviously forgotten our schoolboy encounters with Ronald and his gang.

  ‘He’s a bad’un, a dealer. You want to keep a close eye on him.’

  Neil seemed to be soaking in the details of Ronald’s appearance. He hadn’t even asked what he dealt in or how I knew. Those criminals were going to run rings around him.

  Chapter 13

  Settling down, 1981-82

  After a while, Rachel and I had sufficient savings to do what every other young couple seemed to be doing, and took out a mortgage on a flat. Ours was in Teddington, even though most of our friends chided us for being suburban. We commuted into Waterloo together and then went our separate ways before meeting up again in the evening for the journey home or, on Thursdays, to attend a wine appreciation club. I loved the routine and the feeling of security it gave me.

  Rachel went on a course in Leadership Essentials, but only after I’d exacted a promise from her that she’d always revise on her own. After a dull day in the office I felt at a loose end and decided not to return to the empty flat. Instead I headed for Val Polly’s wine bar in Covent Garden, a favourite haunt of some of the younger audit team members. I negotiated my way through the smog and mass of bodies to squeeze into a seat by the bar, and ordered a glass of over-priced house red. After a while there was a tap on my shoulder. It was John Beart, his pronounced canine teeth lending his half-smile a feline and sinister air.

  ‘Why don’t you come and join us?’ He nodded towards a table where a balding and corpulent young man in a loud blazer was slumped. I looked John up and down. He was immaculate in a chalk-stripe suit with light blue shirt and maroon tie; I was sure, had I asked, he’d have taken great pleasure in telling me the name of his Savile Row tailor.

  While I felt shabby in my creased suit, his companion, Martin, who I discovered was his Finance Director, looked even scruffier, his chocolate and pink striped blazer bearing witness to the remnants of at least one meal.

  I took my wine with me. John waved it away. ‘Absolute gut rot, have some of this instead.’ He pointed to a bottle of Krug cooling in an ice bucket and made his way to the bar to get an extra glass.

  ‘The Aussies stuffed up good and proper,’ Martin said. ‘Quite a collapse after their first innings.’

  Though I’d barely followed the third test, I’d heard one brief item on the news a little while before.

  ‘Thought Dyson might do us some damage after his first-innings century,’ I said, not knowing what had happened after that.

  ‘Not so hot in the second though, was he?’ Martin chortled. ‘Can’t wait to see those little Ocker faces when we win the Ashes.’

  ‘What are you doing now?’ John asked, handing me a glass of champagne.

  ‘Still at AP. What are you up to?’

  He raised an eyebrow.

  ‘Would’ve thought that a capable fellow like you would’ve gone to one of the big four by now.”

  ‘Happy where I am,’ I replied, feeling defensive. ‘Besides, I’ll make partner soon.’

  ‘Congratulations,’ John said, and he sounded genuinely pleased. He exchanged glances with Martin. ‘We were just saying we need some new auditors. Perhaps your lot might fit the bill. You might even be our audit partner.’

  ‘Don’t know about that. Your Board has to appoint the auditors and my firm would have to decide which partner to put in charge.’

  John smiled enigmatically.

  ‘These things can be arranged.’ He gave me his card. ‘Tell me when you’ve been promoted. Accountancy firms just love it when someone brings in new business. You’ll be their blue-eyed boy. Could earn you a big fat bonus.’

  He recharged the glasses and raised his in a toast.

  ‘To an enduring and profitable partnership.’

  *

  It seemed that every other weekend some friends or other of ours were getting married. I was best man at Richard’s wedding and, despite almost paralysing nerves, managed to stumble through my speech, even raising a few laughs.

  Just as the flow of weddings seemed to be drying up, a cousin of Rachel’s married an Honourable. Rachel’s parents hardly acknowledged me and, while Rachel was placed amongst titled dignitaries on the top table, I found myself in the furthest corner, surrounded by distant and batty old relatives.

  ‘Who did you say you are, dear?’ an ageing second cousin on my right asked me every five minutes, while the old boy with mutton-chop whiskers on my left, I never did discover who he was, kept up a rambling monologue on what was wrong with modern Britain. The afternoon seemed endless, and even a lot of alcohol failed to deaden the pain.

  ‘Wasn’t that a wonderful wedding?’ Rachel seized my arm as we walked to the tube station. ‘A beautiful bride in a fairy-tale dress, lovely venue, delicious food, plenty to drink, great speeches; ten out of ten. That’s how I’d like my wedding to be.’

  ‘Shame about the groom,’ I said. ‘He’s probably two out of ten, and that’s being generous.’ I’d met him socially a few times and had always found him an arrogant prig. I’d overheard him at the reception, surrounded by his Old Etonian chums, sneering at what they referred to as the penny-pinching attitude of the bride’s middle-class family. While I’d hated every dragging moment, I’d considered the hospitality generous.

  ‘Oh, Toby’s all right underneath his Lord Snooty impression. It’s just bombast. He’s quite sweet really.’

  I shook my head. There was no point debating this. She’d always been dazzled by the aristocracy, even those of dubious provenance like Toby, whose grandfather’s unabashed toadying to Anthony Eden during the Suez crisis had earned him his viscountcy.

  *

  We’d spent Christmas apart as Rachel felt obliged to visit her family. At New Year we were reunited, and inevitably found ourselves at a party, this time held in the suburban wilderness south of London and given by someone in Rachel’s office. I was driving and had very little to drink. Rachel had tucked in to a rather sinister bowl of punch and, on the way home, settled into the pas
senger seat in a contented stupor. Drizzle fell continuously and, as the windscreen wipers splish-splashed rhythmically, a pleasant calm descended on the car. It was broken when Rachel erupted suddenly from her reverie and asked, ‘Why don’t we get married?’

  ‘Us?’ I reached for the car radio and started to twiddle with the dial. ‘Bugger, I don’t seem to be able to get Capital. It’s usually good at this time of night.’

  ‘Yes. Us.’ Her voice sounded determined and I wondered how long she’d been thinking about it.

  ‘What’s wrong with living together?’

  ‘Well, for a start, we can’t spend the night with each other when we’re with my parents. It would be so much more convenient to avoid all that embarrassing tip-toeing about at the dead of night.’

  ‘We hardly ever spend nights with your parents and we never visit mine—’

  She swatted my objection aside. ‘And then there are the children.’

  ‘What children? I wasn’t aware we had any children.’

  ‘I’d like to have children one day.’

  Thoughts of sleepless nights, dirty nappies and a house littered with baby toys consumed me, and I shuddered.

  ‘You’ve had too much to drink,’ I said, perhaps a little unwisely. Drunks never like to be told they’re drunk.

  ‘I’m completely sober.’ She sat bolt upright in her seat. ‘Do you want to marry me or don’t you? Why do men never want to commit?’ She looked away and sat in silence as I considered my options. While I regarded the whole wedding business as an expensive farce, I certainly didn’t want to lose her.

  We passed an all-night kebab shop as a crowd of middle-aged men fell out of the pub next door and started to form a queue. It was like a vision of Saturday Evenings Future if I remained single.