Fall From Grace

by Menon, David

  FALL FROM GRACE

  DAVID MENON

  EMPIRE PUBLICATIONS

  MANCHESTER

  www.empire-uk.com

  www.davidmenon.com

  *

  DEDICATIONS

  ‘ … to Julie and Tony G for showing me the meaning of the word ‘family’ and to all those friends who’ve shone some much needed light into my period of black ink darkness over recent months … eternal gratitude and love … ‘

  ‘ … and to anyone who Falls from Grace whilst fighting long and hard just to make sure you survive … ‘

  ... And once again thanks to Maddie and the extended French side of my family for their revolution and for the delicious way they cook rabbit!

  ...And to my good friend Janet Keene for truly getting the story.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  To Ashley, John, Sadie and the rest of the team at Empire for giving me this opportunity and for running the coolest publishing house from the coolest office in the shadow of the Old Trafford sacred ground. I think this now makes me part of the whole ‘Madchester’ scene and I couldn’t be more proud.

  When you’ve a moment or two, check out the website www.republic.co.uk. ‘Republic’ is the organisation that campaigns for the replacement of the monarchy in Britain with an elected Head of State. Listen to the argument and join the debate.

  You can reach me by one of the following thoroughly modern methods.

  www.davidmenon.com

  www.facebook.com/davidmenon

  www.twitter.com/#ifanyonefalls

  www.leftwingrealist.com – my political blog!

  *

  ONE

  He’d always been known as Dr. Sprightly. Gerald Edwards had been a G.P in the North Derbyshire town of Glossop for the best part of fifty years until he retired on the same day that his beloved Margaret Thatcher was forced out of office by her spineless comrades. He would never forget the tears on her face as she made her way to the car outside number ten. She’d been betrayed and as far as Gerald was concerned they should all have been ashamed.

  He could no longer ride his bike into town but he could still walk down the hill with the best of them, although going back up took a little longer these days. As he got closer into town he exchanged greetings and short conversations with various people he passed along the way. His son and daughter had both followed in his footsteps into medicine and taken over the health centre out on the Buxton road that he’d started back in the sixties. All the family, his grandchildren included, were known around the town and most people also mentioned his dear wife Joan who’d passed away some years ago. It was for Joan that he kept up his routines. It was for her that he never left the house without wearing a tie, a jacket and his shoes polished. She wouldn’t have wanted him to have given up on himself. She’d been a dutiful wife and he owed it to her memory to keep up his appearance like she’d have wanted him to.

  He bought some apples, pears and bananas at the greengrocer and put the three brown paper bags into the shopping bag that he’d kept in his pocket. He then went to the cake shop and bought a Victoria jam and cream sandwich that would probably last him two or three days, though his youngest grandchild Nicholas always called round on his way home from school. His other grandchildren were all at university.

  He went into the newsagent and bought his copy of that day's Telegraph. He didn’t linger much in the newsagent these days. Since Mr. and Mrs. Singh had taken it over he didn’t care to. What on earth would he have to talk about with these Asian merchants? What could they say that would be of any interest to him?

  As he came out of the newsagent he stepped back to let a lady through. She was of a similar age to himself, though probably a little younger, and as they exchanged a smile they were both gripped by a flash of recognition that took them a very long way back. He could see what was happening in her eyes and he walked on briskly pretending not to notice that she had fainted.

  *

  Sara Hoyland knew she didn’t have to make much of an effort to look good. Her crystal blue eyes, high cheek bones, small yet pronounced mouth and natural blond hair meant that she was regarded as something of a stunner. She could throw anything on, just like she’d done this morning with a plain white t-shirt tucked into stone washed denim jeans and finished with a black leather jacket, and she still looked better than some of her colleagues who’d spent hours pouring over what would be the right thing to wear. She put a brush through her shoulder length hair and rubbed some moisturiser into the flesh of her face. It was an expensive moisturiser, her one concession to the finer art of female make-up techniques, and then she was ready to leave her warehouse apartment across the road from Piccadilly station on the east of Manchester’s city centre. She’d sometimes thought about moving out to one of the southern suburbs like Chorlton or Didsbury, but her social life revolved around the city centre so what would be the point? Until she met a man she wanted to settle down with she would stay in her apartment which, despite the economic crisis, had still on paper, made her quite a packet. And besides, she liked being in the city surrounded by noise and activity. She wouldn’t know what to do with peace and quiet.

  She parked her car outside the Serious Crime division headquarters on the Chester New Road, not far from her hallowed ground of Old Trafford. If anything was sure to make the scales fall from her eyes it was the teasing by City supporters that none of United’s fans were actually from Manchester. Sara was a Mancunian down to her fingertips, born and brought up in a family that was steeped in the traditions of God’s own football club for God’s own city. Being the youngest and the only girl meant that the obsession of her Dad and her older brothers had been instilled in her from the moment she could speak. It was only her and her Dad who went to the home games now and they’d always been close so they relished the Saturday afternoons on their own. Her brothers, all with kids and mortgages the size of Greenland, couldn’t afford it anymore. Screw all the City fans. It was just pure jealousy and if United didn’t end up top of the league this season then she’d rather see Blackpool there than bloody City!

  She ran up the three flights of stairs and along the corridor to where she knew she had to make a good impression. Her Mum and Dad were so proud. Their little girl had made it through the ranks to Detective Chief Inspector and one of the youngest in the country. They still worried themselves sick about her being a serving police officer on the streets but they’d been telling anybody and everybody that their daughter was up there with the best and still a year away from being thirty.

  She took a deep breath and knocked on the door of the Superintendent.

  ‘Come in!’

  She opened the door to see Superintendent James Hargreaves, sat at his large desk. They knew each other but she’d never worked directly for him. She knew he was highly regarded at the station for playing it straight with his team. She also knew that he had a reputation as something of a ladies’ man. He was married with two teenage children but it was an open secret that his marital status didn’t stop him having a little fun whenever the opportunity presented itself. Currently he was alleged to be seeing a WPC who was twenty years younger. He’d tried it on with Sara once but she’d been able to laugh him off, which clearly hadn’t caused him any offence seeing as he’d been on the interview panel that had decided on her promotion. Sara was by no means a prude. She loved sex. But married men could keep it in their trousers as far as she was concerned. She’d been there, done that, got the broken heart and burned fingers and she was never going back there again.

  ‘Ah, Detective Chief Inspector Hoyland,’ Hargreaves said warmly. He stepped from behind his desk and shook hands with her, ‘now how does that sound?’

  ‘Great, sir’ said Sara, beaming. ‘Really great.’r />
  Sara once again took in the short black hair, the six foot burly frame and the twinkle in the Superintendent’s eyes. There was certainly a lot of charm to go with the unquestionably handsome looks and she understood his success with the women. It was rumoured that he was pretty well blessed in the third leg department too and for a moment she wondered if she should’ve shagged him when she had the chance, just the once, just to see what he was like as a lover and how big his tool really was. Then she told herself to snap out of it. This was the first day in her new job and it wasn’t the time to think like a girl.

  ‘Your promotion was well deserved, Sara,’ said Hargreaves. ‘Your record is exemplary. A brave and trustworthy officer. That’s exactly who I need on my team’.

  Sara could feel herself blushing, ‘Well thank you again, sir’.

  ‘A fast tracker without having been on a fast track,’ said Hargreaves. ‘One of the best clean up rates of any officer in the city.’

  ‘Well, I’m proud of that, sir, of course I am,’ said Sara, ‘but now I’m just looking forward to getting on with the new job’.

  ‘Good,’ said Hargreaves, ‘but first I want to introduce you to your new DI who’ll be your second in command. His name is Tim Norris. Do you know him?’

  Sara counted on all her powers of resilience to stop the mention of Tim’s name from causing the walls of her world to cave in on her.

  *

  Paul Foster was manager of the Salford community services centre in the Broughton area of the city. He’d been asked to manage it by the leader of the city council because he was known for setting his own rules and using his imagination to solve problems instead of relying on a book of regulations. The centre was unique because it brought together under one roof all aspects of social services along with an NHS dentists practice, a GP surgery and mini treatment centre, a group of counsellors and therapists, a branch of the Citizens Advice Bureau and a firm of solicitors that handled legal aid work. Paul also led the team of social workers based there. There were the usual internal political tensions like there always was when you try and get different empires together for the benefit of the greater good, but Paul could handle that and indeed, loved the challenge of it. If his instinctive decision-making got under the noses of his more empire protecting colleagues then his instincts told him he was doing the right thing.

  He was on his way to a call on the Tatton estate. Formerly owned by the council but now owned and managed by a not-for-profit housing association, it had been built in the 1960’s and was a grey labyrinth of high rise blocks of flats, maisonettes and so-called family homes. He knew the estate like the back of his hand. It was his patch and there were a minefield of problems on it but Paul was a revolutionary who would never accept that nothing could ever change for the better. He was known as being tough. He took issue with many of the residents who saw it as their right to have a flat screen TV but not their responsibility to get their kids to school. They’d been indulged by too many in his profession. He’d once overheard a colleague telling a parent how ‘impressed’ she was with her for getting her child to school every day for a week. That was the trouble with some of his colleagues. They let people off too easily. Getting your child to school every day should be normal and not worthy of comment.

  He rang the doorbell of No.6 Kendal Way. Lorraine Cowley opened the door. She’d been expecting him.

  ‘You’d better come in,’ said Lorraine.

  Inside there was stuff all over the place, some of it recognisable as nappies and baby clothes, some of it a complete mystery, all of it scattered with no apparent reason or order. Stomping through it all was Lorraine on her wafer thin flip flops. Her black shorts were tighter than tight and her stomach hung over them like a slab of meat on a tray that wasn’t big enough for it. The hem of her white t-shirt was dangling way in front of her distorted frame and her neck had disappeared into a sort of area that connected her chin to her chest. She was a couple of years younger than Paul but she looked far older and she was already a grandmother twice over. Her greasy hair was scraped back in a savage ponytail making her face look even fatter. She’d never gone out to work. Instead she’d had three children by different fathers all of whom the state paid for just like it now paid for her children’s offspring.

  Paul followed her through to the kitchen where one of her teenage daughters was sat, or rather slumped, at the table, chin resting on hands supported by elbows bent on the table. She was smoking and sipping from a mug of what Paul took to be coffee and she looked completely disinterested in life. She was watching her toddler daughter run naked around the small space with a dummy in her mouth and a bag of crisps in her hand. The toddler looked at Paul and smiled. He winked at her and she giggled the way little people of her age do. He bent down to her.

  ‘Hello, Candice,’ he said, warmly, ‘do you remember me?’

  ‘And you are?’ her mother asked.

  Paul asked as he straightened himself up and turned round. ‘I’m Paul’ he said. He held out his hand but Anita didn’t respond. ‘I work at the social services centre up at Broughton. We have met before. You’re Anita, aren’t you?’

  ‘Yeah, and I do remember you. You tried to get me to have my baby adopted.’

  ‘I said it was one of your choices.’

  ‘And I said that half the girls in my street had got babies and I wanted one too.’

  ‘You’re nearly seventeen, aren’t you Anita?’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So if you could find yourself a job you could make use of the nursery we’ve got at the centre.’

  ‘Oh no she couldn’t!’ Lorraine insisted, ‘she’s staying here to look after Candice.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because it’s her right!’

  ‘Sorry Lorraine but since when did it become the right of those not in work to have children that they expect those in work to pay for? Did that pass me by or what?’

  ‘It’s just another attack on the poor and helpless.’

  ‘You may be poor, Lorraine,’ said Paul, ‘and there may be all kinds of reasons for that. But you’re not helpless. Now, how’s your Michaela getting on?’

  ‘Alright, although it’s no thanks to you.’

  ‘Lorraine, she’s fifteen, she needed to get back to school.’

  ‘She needs to be here looking after her baby!’ Lorraine insisted, ‘instead of which you made her go back to waste more of her time listening to useless teachers’.

  ‘They’re not useless, Lorraine, they’re dedicated to helping your kids’.

  ‘Rubbish!’

  ‘Where is the baby by the way?’ asked Paul.

  ‘Upstairs asleep,’ said Lorraine, ‘and our Michaela has got nothing to do with you, whether she goes to school or not.’

  ‘I’m afraid she has,’ said Paul, ‘she’s a minor, she’s underage, and she has everything to do with me.’

  ‘You threatened me with jail unless I made her go back to school.’

  ‘And I’d do it again for the sake of Michaela,’ said Paul, ‘but we’ve also got another matter to discuss.’

  Lorraine had made a complaint against her GP who was a colleague and friend of Paul’s in the community services centre. She said that Dr. Fergus Keene had refused to proscribe drugs to her eight-year-old son Sam who she claimed had A.D.D. Dr. Keene, on the other hand, had told her that her son was not suffering from A.D.D and therefore did not need the drugs. Lorraine had kept Sam off school that day and Paul went through to the lounge to talk to him.

  ‘He needs something to calm him down,’ Lorraine insisted between drags on her cigarette. Since Paul had arrived she’d never had one out of her fingers just like she’d never put down her mug of the hot brown liquid she called coffee.

  ‘And why do you say that, Lorraine?’ Paul asked.

  ‘Well you can see,’ she said, ‘he’s all over the bloody shop.’

  What Paul could see was a little eight-year-old boy called Sam who was very easy to engage wit
h once someone took an interest in him. He spent half an hour talking with Sam, asking him about school and what he liked to do there. Sam told him that books and reading were his favourite things and that had opened up a conversation about Harry Potter. Sam said he was halfway through the fifth book which didn’t surprise Paul considering all his school reports stated that his reading ability was a good three years ahead of his age. Sam was able to give him a full resume of all the leading Hogwarts characters. Paul thanked God for JK Rowling. Her books had gone way beyond the simple limits of entertainment. They were reaching into the minds of boys like Sam and taking him light years away from the gloom of his reality.

  ‘It’s no good him reading if he can’t behave,’ said Lorraine who didn’t seem too impressed by her son’s knowledge of the world of the boy wizard. She hadn’t said anything whilst Paul and Sam were talking. She’d just looked round and glared a few times.

  ‘Lorraine, what can we do for your son without resorting to drugs?’

  ‘Drugs are what he needs to calm him down!’ Lorraine insisted, ‘My nerves are shot to pieces because of his antics.’

  ‘You want us to drug him into not being a bother to you? Is that what this is all about, Lorraine? What kind of country do you think you’re living in? When are you going to take proper responsibility as a parent?’

  ‘My girls have never been any trouble to me, not even for one single second! But him…’ she stabbed her finger in the air in her son’s direction ‘… he’s been a pain since the minute he was born!’

  ‘So both your daughters having babies when they were underage isn’t a problem but your son showing an interest in getting educated is?’

  ‘If you put it like that.’