by Chris Simms
Tom chuckled. 'Listen, I've got tickets for the Cheshire Sevens this Sunday at Sale. Seats in the corporate box, free beer and sandwiches. You up for it?'
'Mate, you've just made typing out this witness statement far more enjoyable. What time?'
'Eleven fifteen at the main gates, if you like.'
'OK, I'll see you there. Thanks for the offer.'
*
Sunday morning and Jon joined a throng of people moving through the narrow residential roads towards Sale Rugby Club's ground. He caught snatches of the conversations going on around him, mostly about whether Sale would move into Manchester City's old stadium when the football club took over the Commonwealth Games stadium once the competition ended.
As the flow of people carried him towards the entrance, his eyes were drawn to the man casually leaning against one of the gateposts. Stepping across to him, Jon smiled. 'Thanks for the invite, mate. How are you?'
He looked down a good five inches into the other man's face and noticed the dark smudges under his friend's eyes.
Tom Benwell smiled crookedly and said, 'Hey – you know. Surviving. You're looking horribly fit as usual. Do you coppers do anything else but work out in the gym?'
'That and the odd crossword sat at our desks. How about you? Still having to take clients out to all the best restaurants round town?'
Tom accepted the riposte with a grin. 'Yeah, that and swanning around in my company car.'
'What are you driving nowadays?'
'Audi TT.'
Jon shook his head. 'Nice. 'Then the thought struck him. 'Don't leave the keys on that table in your front hall. I'm working on a case at the moment where some little scrotes are hooking them through letterboxes and nicking the car.'
'Seriously? What with? A fishing rod?'
'Lengths of garden cane with a hook on the end. A couple have been left in people's front gardens. Thing is, some insurers are claiming that, because the car has been opened up and driven off with the keys, they don't have to pay out. And high-performance vehicles like yours are what they're going for.'
'So there are even more luxury cars on housing estates round Liverpool then?' said Tom in a Scouse accent.
Jon laughed. 'No, we reckon these are being shipped straight out of the country. Probably ending up in Eastern Europe.'
'Cheers for the advice. 'Tom showed his company's season ticket to an attendant and led the way to the corporate hospitality suite. 'When was the last time we saw each other? Was it that European cup match back in February?' 'God, you're right. How crap is that? Alice still hasn't met...' John faltered,'. . . your wife.'
'Charlotte, you dim twat, 'Tom answered for him.
Jon rolled his eyes in agreement. 'How's married life going, then?'
'Fine. Expensive, but fine,' answered Tom.
'Expensive? You haven't got a kid on the way, have you?'
Tom glanced over his shoulder, a strange expression on his face. 'Not that I know of. I'm talking about Charlotte. She blows money like nobody's business. 'He patted his Timberland jacket. 'You don't think I'd pick something like this, do you?'
Jon eyed the expensive-looking item, then glanced at the sleeve of his own battered leather jacket, which he'd found in a stall that smelt of joss sticks in Affleck's Palace years ago.
Tom had met Charlotte only the previous year and, much to everyone's surprise, they had flown out to Barbados and got married within weeks. Jon decided to put the subject on hold, at least until they'd had a few beers.
By now they were at the door to the hospitality suite. Tom showed their pass to another attendant and then stepped back. 'After you, mate.'
Jon bounded up the stairs two at a time. He looked back at the top only to see Tom halfway up. By the time he caught up, he was puffing slightly.
'Jesus, are you trying to make me feel unfit? This is the most exercise I've done for months.'
Playfully Jon cuffed him on the back of the head. 'You should never have given up playing. Fly halves like you don't need to make tackles – us flankers do all that kind of stuff for you.'
'You're saying you used to do all my tackling?' said Tom. 'As far as I can remember, you were too busy trying to get the opposition's fly half stretchered off to be doing any of my tackling.'
Jon grinned. 'Well, you fly halves. Serves you right for prancing round the pitch doing your poncey little side steps and shimmies.'
There was an awkward pause and Jon cursed himself. He should have remembered how sensitive Tom could be.
Regret hung on Tom's face. 'Not with the hours I work,' he murmured. 'Don't tell me – you're carrying on playing for Cheadle Ironsides next season?' 'Hope so,' answered Jon, now anxious not to make his friend feel bad. 'It's nowhere near the standard we used to play at for Stockport, but I turn out when I can.'
'For which team, you old bastard?' Voice now brighter. 'The veterans? When do you get to wear those purple “don't tackle me” shorts?' Tom shoved his mate aside with a smile.
Relieved Tom hadn't taken the comment to heart, Jon hissed, 'Piss off,' and kicked at Tom's heels as they headed for the bar.
The sevens tournament was played in the spirit of the season's final event. Looking down at the teams warming up on the touchlines, it was obvious plenty of players were still nursing hangovers from the previous night. When one threw up before running on to the pitch the crowd cheered with delight. During the matches themselves, all the teams avoided playing safe and kicking – instead the ball was run from everywhere with outrageously long passes and overly complicated moves being attempted. The play was great to watch, but the teams soon tired, even with each match only lasting fifteen minutes.
At one point a slimly built back tried to sell an unconvincing dummy to a forward running on a defensive angle across the pitch. The forward didn't buy it, aiming his charge at the ball carrier and not the man he was apparently passing to. The forward's shoulder caught the back full in the kidneys, doubling him over before sending him crashing to the turf.
A collective 'Oooohhhh' rose up from the crowd and Tom swivelled in his seat to punch Jon delightedly on the shoulder. 'Straight out of “Spicer the Slicer's” tackling manual!' he said. 'What a hit!'
Aware of several other spectators glancing over at Tom's comment, Jon modestly kept looking down at the match below. But the mention of his nickname when playing for Stockport hadn't gone unnoticed. Sure enough an elderly man wearing a tie approached.
'Jon Spicer? Rupert Horsely.'
Jon looked up, taking in the posh accent and Manchester Rugby Football Club badge on the man's blazer. With the faintest reluctance, he stood up to shake hands. 'Good to meet you.'
'Still playing, Jon?' the man asked in a blustery sort of way, a pint of bitter held against his paunch.
Jon rubbed the back of his neck with one hand. 'Yeah, but just socially nowadays. Cheadle Ironsides.' 'Open side flanker?'
Jon nodded.
'First team?'
'Yup.'
The man stroked his moustache for a moment, then looked down at Tom. 'Saw this man taking apart more than a few players when he ran out for Stockport. Finest number seven outside the professional code I've ever seen play.'
Jon cringed as Tom raised his eyebrows to indicate he was impressed.
As the man turned away to rejoin his friends, he placed a hand on Jon's shoulder and murmured, 'You could have gone all the way in my opinion.'
He walked off without waiting for a reply and Jon sat back down awkwardly. Once the man was safely out of earshot, Tom leaned to one side and whispered from the corner of his mouth. 'I like that! Doesn't even bloody remember seeing me play. The old fart.'
As the afternoon wore on they kept up a disjointed conversation between bursts of action on the pitch. Once the final had been battled out by a pair of very weary teams, several pints had gone down and Jon could feel Tom relaxing.
'How's life in... what's the bit you're in again?' asked Tom.
'MISU. Major Incident Support Unit. Hard work
and the hours can be shocking when we get a new case, but it couldn't be better, cheers.'
'When did you switch to them? Two months ago?'
'Nearly four.'
'God, that's gone fast. But you still count as a CID officer?'
'Yeah, it's a bit of a nightmare set-up. Basically, I work for Trafford division CID, but when a major incident occurs – usually a murder – I can be seconded into MISU to investigate it. All the CID divisions round Manchester contribute officers into MISU as and when they're needed. It's decided by some sort of extraction formula, but all the divisions moan about its fairness.' 'Don't tell me – they're paying a firm of consultants to come up with a better system?' 'No, we're just ripping off how they do it down in London.' 'Which is?' 'AMIT. Stands for Area Major Incident Unit, I think. A permanent collection of officers who are there solely to investigate big crimes. Except we won't call ours AMIT. Probably be FMIT – Force Major Incident Unit.'
Tom laughed. 'And I thought Manchester's advertising agencies' names were bad. JWT, BDH, MKP, MAP – I always get them mixed up. So you'll apply for this FMIT when it starts up?'
'Definitely. All the top people and all the best cases. It'll be tough getting in, though.'
'Not like MISU, where you get dumped with looking for car thieves?'
'Hey,' Jon answered, holding a forefinger up. 'Don't knock that case; they're stealing dozens of vehicles each month. Whoever is in that gang is making a lot of money. But that's just a single investigation. We have more than one to work on at a time.'
'So what else?'
Jon searched his mind for a case that he could talk about. 'Remember that woman who was found under the viaduct near Stockport last year?'
Tom nodded. 'Some barmaid who'd taken a battering?'
'That's the one. Her killer's just gone down for life and the team I was on caught him. Well, us and forensics.'
Tom stayed silent, looking expectantly at his friend.
'She had a particular type of gravel embedded in her face. Turned out to be part of a very small batch used to landscape a park in north Manchester. We searched the bushes around it and retrieved the brick she'd been bludgeoned with. Forensics got a DNA sample from some skin caught on a jagged bit at the unbloodied end. It matched a sample already on the national database. We lifted him – the landlord – from his pub about three hours later. His car had fibres and blood in the boot. He'd battered her in the park, then driven her across town and dumped her.'
'Nice one,' said Tom, visibly impressed.
'So how's work for you?'
Tom grimaced slightly and looked out of the window. 'It's all right. Pays a shedload but, to be honest, I'm getting a bit sick of it.'
'Why's that?' asked Jon, leaning forward.
Tom glanced at him before looking back out of the window. 'I don't know. Arse-kissing clients the whole time doesn't get any easier. Trying to get enthusiastic about their posters and promotions. You work in the industry a while and you begin to realize that all advertising campaigns are based on the same things.'
'Such as?'
Tom let out his breath as if bored. 'Yeah. Greed, sloth, envy, pride ... I forget the rest.'
Jon was surprised. 'Those are the motives for most crimes. I hadn't realized they're the basis for most advertising too.'
'Not most – all. Take credit cards; that's greed. The ads are always along the lines of “Why wait? Get what you want right now with this card.” No mention about how you'll pay for it further down the line. Cars? That depends on the angle they work. Usually it's pride:“Drive this and people will admire you.” It's all about achieving the same at the end of the day – feeding the machine.'
Jon continued looking at him, unsure of what he meant.
'The economy,' Tom explained. 'People have to keep buying products. That's how it works. You can't have people keeping stuff or getting it repaired. You use it for a bit, then chuck it away and buy something new. That's what advertising is there to do: create demand, encourage you to keep on buying. Otherwise the whole capitalist machine would grind to a halt.'
'You think too deeply to be working in that industry.'
Suddenly Tom's eyes lit up. 'Want to know what I'm really thinking about?'
'Go on.'
'Getting out of it. It's all just a bit of a daydream at the moment, but I'm looking at buying a little business down in Cornwall. A cafe or some kind of shop.'
'Could you afford it?'
'Almost. If we sold my place in Didsbury and then added the company bonus I'm due, we could just about afford to buy a smaller place to live in and use the leftovers to purchase the business.'
'Bloody hell,' said Jon. 'I thought you loved city life.'
Tom tapped his fingers against his pint glass. 'More and more I'm happy just staying in. The odd meal out, yeah. But the clubs and bars...' He smiled briefly and leaned forward as if divulging a secret. 'I'm just feeling past it, mate. How old are you now?'
'Thirty-three.'
'A year older than me – you do nearly qualify for the veterans!' Jon laughed. 'I know what you mean. Apart from our local pub, me and Alice hardly go out. The last time we stumbled into a club it was full of teenagers. Or at least it seemed like it to me. But what about Charlotte? I thought she was a nightclubbing fiend.'
Tom nodded. 'She's full into it, just like I was at twenty-two. I daren't tell her that I'd prefer to stay in most nights and watch telly.'
Jon had hardly met his friend's wife, so he decided to ask a little more. 'Is she working at the moment?'
From the slight pursing of Tom's lips before he spoke, Jon guessed this was a bone of contention between them.
'She sometimes talks about going on a course at college, but I think she just likes floating around, doing her tennis and keep-fit stuff at the leisure centre. She certainly never wants to work as a receptionist again.'
Jon turned the information over in his head. Tom's choice in women always seemed based purely on looks, but there was no doubt Charlotte possessed a very shrewd side. The first time he'd met her, Jon had walked away from the occasion with one expression lodged firmly in his head: gold digger. He had given it about two months before Tom dumped her for someone else. So when Tom had rung to say they had got married on the spur of the moment in Barbados, Jon was amazed. There was no doubt in his mind that she had engineered it: there hadn't even been a stag night.
'Is it all right with you that she doesn't work?' Jon asked.
From countless police interviews, Jon could sense when someone wasn't being honest. Now he couldn't help applying this ability to his old team mate.
'Yeah, of course it is,' said Tom, brushing a knuckle across the tip of his nose. 'It's quite nice being the main earner, having her waiting for me when I get in from work. 'Then, changing the subject, he said, 'What about you and Alice? How long have you been together now? It must be time for marriage and a sprog soon.'
'Eleven years. And yes, it looks like that's on the cards.'
'Shit! You mean you're getting married? Or is she pregnant? Or both?' Tom pulled out a packet of cigarettes and offered one to Jon.
'No thanks – that's part of the deal. No marriage yet, but we're giving up smoking and starting to try for a kid. A general cleanliving caper.' He looked down at his pint and tilted it reflectively to the side. 'Apart from the odd ale, of course.'
'Jesus,' said Tom, lighting up. 'Feel ready for all that stuff, then?'
Jon took a long sip from his pint. He would have given a totally honest answer if he hadn't felt that Tom was holding back on his own description of married life. He would have admitted the whole prospect terrified him, admitted that he feared his entire life was about to be ruined. He might even have admitted that now he couldn't help looking at Nikki Kingston, the crime scene manager he casually flirted with, as a potential escape route if he turned out to be as big a failure at fatherhood as he feared. Instead he said, 'Ready as you can ever be, I suppose. It's about time. Alice is thirty two no
w and you know women – they start getting very aware of their biological clocks after thirty. You've got eight years to go with Charlotte.'
'Yeah, 'Tom faintly replied. Jon got the feeling it was a source of regret for his friend.
'Anyway,' said Jon, draining the last of his pint. 'What are we doing? Staying here for another or calling it a day?'
Tom looked down at the pitch. Most of the crowd had now gone and a group of kids tussled over a rugby ball beneath one set of posts while a couple of groundsmen trod back dislodged lumps of turf at the halfway line, their shadows stretching far out across the grass. 'Come on. Let's get a cab into town.'
'Yeah, why not?' Jon felt a sudden warm surge of pleasure at the prospect of a lazy Sunday evening spent getting drunk. He caved in to it and picked up his friend's pack of Silk Cut. 'Don't bloody tell Alice,' he mumbled, a cigarette bobbing between his lips.
Tom laughed and offered him a light.
Evening sun flooded through the windscreen as they waited for the lights to change. Drumming his fingers on his knee, Jon squinted up at the twenty-two-storey office block on his right. Its entire side had been coated in a vivid yellow and almost 250 feet above, three painted figures – one red, one blue, one green – stood with arms raised in triumph. Below them classically styled, twenty-foot-high lettering proudly proclaimed, 'Manchester 2002. The XVII Commonwealth Games.'
Jon's eyes slid halfway down the building to the enormous digital readout mounted on its side. The orange number glowing from the screen had dropped again.
'Eighty-one days to go. Can you believe it?' he said, looking up the four lanes of Portland Street towards Piccadilly Gardens. Suspended from each lamppost along the length of the street were vertical banners. Orange, purple, lime or turquoise, each one had the same three triumphant figures at the top and the words, 'The XVII Commonwealth Games' stretching below. They lent the street a celebratory air, the kind Jon imagined ancient Rome enjoyed prior to an event in the Colosseum. 'So come on then, talk me through what you actually do to deserve your flash car and big house in Didsbury.'
'Loads, actually,' Tom told him pompously. 'Big, big, highpowered stuff. Very complicated for the lay person to understand.' He grinned, dropping the act. 'Just sales, really. Ringing people up and persuading them to part with some cash. Only this time round I'm usually offering people money to take my product.'