by Tom Graham
After a long pause, Gene said: ‘And I still can’t place the name Earles!’ And then he added: ‘Do they have khazis in this gaff? I’m breaking me neck for a gypsy’s.’
Gene prowled off in the direction of Joe’s Caff across the way, already fiddling with the fly of his trousers as he crossed the road. He hadn’t been kidding – he really was desperate for a slash. Sam was going to wait for him in the Cortina, but something drew him to linger in the churchyard. Walking among the headstones, he peered at the engraved names that time and the weather had worn away to sad anonymity. Grey clouds moved silently by overhead. The wind picked up, and Sam pulled his jacket around his body to fend off the chill.
What was he doing here, loitering about amid all this death? What was compelling him to stay when he could be snug in the Cortina, the radio on and some Bowie or Bolan or Floyd blaring out?
Something moved on the very edge of his vision, and when Sam turned and saw what it was, he realized at once, with a cold sense of dread, what had brought him here.
A black balloon was bobbing above an open grave. And beneath the balloon, on the lip of the freshly dug hole, stood the Test Card Girl, her little feet primly together, her dolly-clown cradled against the front of her pinafore dress. She was staring directly across at Sam, her mouth turned down, her eyes wide and sad, feigning sorrow.
‘What is it this time?’ Sam asked, approaching slowly. He didn’t want to get too close to that open grave. It revolted him. ‘Who’s in the ground, mmm? Whose funeral is it? Well? Aren’t you going to tell me?’
The Girl slowly shook her head. She was waiting for Sam to come to the edge of the grave and see for himself.
Warily, Sam went towards it. A terrible, arctic cold seemed to be flowing up out of the open grave. His breath steamed. He began to shiver.
‘I can guess what I’m going to see down there,’ he said, trying to stop his teeth from chattering. ‘It’s going to be me, isn’t it.’
The Test Card Girl just looked at him with puppy-dog eyes and said nothing.
‘Or it’s going to be Annie. I’ve seen it all before, you little bitch. You’ve really got to sharpen your game, you’re getting predictable.’
The cold was becoming intolerable, but still Sam moved forward. He was drawing close to the edge of the grave. Like a nervous man on the brink of a cliff, he inched forward, leaning slightly to see over the lip. Sam was bracing himself to see his own dead face down there, or – worse – to see Annie’s. Already, he was repeating to himself in his mind that it was all just trickery designed to make him despair, that it was mind games, just mind games, nothing but mind games …
‘Not this time, Sam,’ the Test Card Girl said gently. ‘This time, it’s very real.’
The body in the open grave was faceless. The skull was nothing but a muddied confusion of broken flesh and ripped bone, but Sam recognised the dark coat that the corpse was wearing, the tightly-knotted tie and, most tellingly of all, the over-starched collar held down with old-fashioned silver collar studs. It was McClintock.
‘What did you do to him ...?’ Sam whispered, unable to look away.
‘Me, Sam? I did nothing but stand by and watch.’
‘What … What did Gould do to him?’
‘What did he do, Sam? He did …’ She thought about it for a moment. ‘He did more than enough.’
So Sam had been right. What he had seen in the cinema had been a glimpse of McClintock’s defeat; his murder at the hands of Clive Gould. As promised, he had tried – desperately, hopelessly perhaps – to make contact with Sam before the end. But as it turned out, it was Annie he had connected with.
‘You know you’re next on the list, Sam,’ the Girl said gently. ‘You know it’s your turn now. Very soon, I’ll be standing by another open grave, just like this one – looking down into it and seeing a black leather jacket, and a wing-collar shirt, and a cute little pair of Chelsea boots, all sitting in an ice-cold mush of dead, dead, deadness. Just like this.’
Sam felt his head spinning. Blurry shapes filled his vision. He felt nauseous.
‘Yes, you’re right to feel poorly, it’s a horrible prospect,’ he heard the Girl say. ‘But it doesn’t have to be like that. I can take you away before all that happens. I can take you to a place where you can sleep, and forget everything, and disappear completely. You don’t need to feel the pain that Mr McClintock felt. And you don’t ever need to know what Annie’s going to go through – for ever – and ever – and ever.’
Sam tottered, on the verge of passing out, and the next thing he knew he was crashing down heavily onto what felt like mounds of ice. The shock and the cold brought him to his senses. Horrified, he found himself looking up at a patch of grey sky framed by the rectangular limits of the open grave, the Test Card Girl leaning over and peering back down at him. Then, hardly daring to breathe, he turned and looked at the solid, frozen corpse of McClintock on which he was lying. The ripped flesh, the coiled intestines, the lungs and liver and exposed, punctured heart, all were rock hard and colder than death. The mutilated face was inches from Sam’s own, the skull visible beneath the slashed skin, the mouth wide open and distorted in a silent, eternally frozen scream. A slender gold chain hung from the ruined lips, and then Sam saw that the fob watch was still wedged hard in his mouth, just where Gould had thrust it.
Sam grabbed the watch. It came away with a tug, bringing slivers of frost with it. He could not leave it behind. It was all the hope he had left.
‘No hope,’ the Test Card Girl corrected him. ‘There is no hope. Better to come with me, Sam – away, into oblivion.’
Ignoring her, Sam held the watch close to his body.
‘It won’t help you, Sam. Forget it. Forget everything, and come with me.’
But Sam clasped the cold metal casing of the watch in his fist, refusing to let go of hope, hanging on to whatever fraying thread of life remained.
‘Come with me, Sam. Before it’s too late. Forget everything. Forget.’
Sam hauled himself to his feet, thrust the watch into his pocket, and began clawing at the sides of the grave, fighting to get out. Above him, the Test Card Girl’s sad, pale face gazed back down, but Sam snarled at it, cursed it, refused to be crushed and broken by the little brat, no matter what horrors she subjected him to. With all his strength, he dragged himself up, hooked his elbows over the lip of the grave and kicked frantically with his legs, until at last he rolled onto the damp grass of the church yard. Panting, he glanced across. The Test Card Girl was gone. All that remained was the black balloon bobbing above the open pit. But even as he looked, the balloon freed itself from its string and went sailing away into the grey sky. The ground shifted, and the grave fell in on itself, smothering the frozen remains of McClintock beneath a cascade of mud.
Exhausted, Sam got to his feet, looking down at what was now a freshly filled-in grave, nameless, awaiting the delivery of its headstone. A single withered flower lay on the newly turned soil.
‘Christ, Tyler, what the chuff have you been doing?!’
It was Gene, bellowing at him from the Cortina. He was back from Joe’s Caff, a dark smattering of moisture visible around the front of his trousers and down his left leg.
Sam looked down at himself, at the mud all over his clothes.
‘I tripped, Guv,’ he called back. ‘I just … tripped over.’
‘You really are a twerp,’ he heard Gene mutter as he climbed into the car, fired her up, and began impatiently gunning the engine.
But Sam hesitated for a moment. He looked down into his filthy hand, and there was the fob watch, very real, and still ticking.
I refuse to believe this thing had no meaning, he thought. It’s just a watch, and it didn’t save McClintock, but even so …
He glanced up at the church spire above him.
Even so, I’ve got to have faith. What else have I got?
The Cortina parp-parp-parped at him to stop dicking about. Sam slipped the watch into his pocket, s
wept the worst of the mud from his jacket, and obeyed the Guv’s imperious summons.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN: A QUIET DRINK
The Railway Arms was heaving; the air thick with tobacco smoke, raucous laughter, and the reek of men. The pints were flowing, the crisps were crackling, and Nelson was working flat out trying to keep up with the demand.
Gene forged his way through the throng like an icebreaker ship. Nothing and no one was going to stand between him and the liquid treasures at the bar. Sam could just make out Chris and Ray already ensconced at the end of the bar, and with them was Annie, looking unhappy and preoccupied.
She’s here under sufferance, he thought. The Guv’s orders. He’s got on her on a short leash. He doesn’t want to let her out of his sight.
Sam cursed the crowd, cursed the noise, cursed the impossibility of getting Annie alone somewhere so they could talk. He knew what was eating her up inside. She was starting to realise that 1973 wasn’t really 1973 at all, that she was part of a far bigger – and potentially far darker – reality.
Sam looked through the jostling crowd to where Nelson was working flat out to keep up with the call for drinks. Not a single one of that thirsty rabble had the slightest inkling of the power and majesty embodied by that grinning Jamaican in his gaudy shirt and flowing dreadlocks. Only Sam had been graced with a glimpse of the true man – if, indeed, Nelson was a ‘man' at all.
Gene had elbowed and barged his way to the bar and was demanding immediate service.
‘Patience, mah friend, paay-shaance!’ Nelson called to him, serving eight other customers all at the same time. ‘I only get de one pair o’ arms! I ain’t no octopus!
‘You smell like one,’ Gene growled. ‘Move it and shake it, Nelson, we need our beer! Courage, Courage, Courage, and another pint of Courage – God Almighty we need it. Oh, and something pissy with a cack of lemon in it for the bird.’
Nelson got round to their drinks – four frothing pints of deep, rich Courage Best, and a small gin and tonic – and as he lined them up on the bar, he caught Sam’s eye.
‘A lot of crap on your jacket there, Sam,’ he said. ‘Been playin’ mud pies?’
‘I tripped. In the churchyard.’
‘Not into a grave, I hope!’ he laughed. His mouth smiled, but somehow his eyes didn’t. ‘I hope you ain’t getting careless, Sam.’
Sam felt like he had been chastised.
‘I’m not getting careless, Nelson.’ Instinctively, he reached into his pocket and felt the hard surface of the fob watch, warmed now by his own body. ‘I’m looking after myself.’
‘Well, I hope so.’
‘I know what’s at stake.’
Sam wanted to say more, but men were hollering for their drinks. It was impossible to talk, so he picked up his pint and joined the others.
‘Here we all are!’ announced Gene, casting his eyes over his team. ‘The whole family together in joyous harmony! Like bloody Christmas but without Morecambe & Wise.’ He fixed his gaze on Annie, who was looking unhappy and distracted. ‘Buck up, luv, there’s girls in this town would give their eye teeth to be relaxing at the bar with Adonis Hunt.’
‘I’m not in the mood for a drink, Guv,’ said Annie, hardly even glancing at Gene.
‘Your moods don’t mean snuff to me, darling,’ Gene snapped at her. ‘I’m your guv’nor and you’re finding out what that really means. That’s why I want you here, right now, with the lads – so I can keep my twinkly eye on you. No more rummaging through the police files like they’re your private scrapbooks, no more running “private investigations” out of my manor. It’s domestic duties for you, my lovely. Your new beat is between CID and the Wavy Line on the corner … until I can figure what to do with you.’
Annie sighed, but still she would not look at Gene or anyone else. Her mind was far, far away from all this. Sam understood her confusion, her doubt, her fear. He had gone through it all himself and he had come through; stronger, more able to cope with the strange world he found himself in. He had learnt to adjust – and Annie would learn too.
Gene quaffed deep of his pint of Courage, smacked his frothy lips, and intoned, ‘Earles. I still can’t place that ruddy name. Raymond, any joy?’
‘Workin’ on it, Guv,’ Ray answered. ‘Not a lot to go on, but I’m doing me best.’
Gene brooded for a moment, then said: ‘This ain’t the place to go into details – too many earwigs flappin’ – but things are coming together into the shape of a giant cack.’
‘I take it that by that you mean that this case is bringing certain unpleasant elements from the past to the surface,’ put in Sam.
‘I do,’ said Gene. ‘And more than just that. This department – meaning me – is in line for stick from the press. Mickey Carroll shouldn’t have snuffed it, not on our watch. He should have been apprehended, all in one piece. What’s more – and for reasons he don’t seem eager to divulge – Tyler decided that Carroll could do with an extra arsehole installed and fired a slug into him. In front of the press. And everyone. Like a bloody weirdo. And talking of weirdos, I caught him rolling about in the bloody graveyard this afternoon, but I think we’ll draw a line under that one and say no more.’
Chris gave Sam a suspicious look. Ray shook his head and snorted contemptuously, like he thought Sam was a total divot.
‘And now,’ Gene went on, ‘it looks like people who should be dead ain’t half as dead we’d like ’em to be and are very much running about on our patch. This ‘erbert Gould, he’s playing us like guppies.’
At the mention of Gould, Annie looked across sharply at Gene, her brow furrowed, her eyes intense.
But Gene paid no attention to her: ‘All in all, my little playmates, there’s a shit storm about to break right over our heads – and we’re all in line for a drenching. A big, brown drenching.’
‘Oh, please, Guv!’ Chris grimaced.
‘But we’re gonna take steps,’ Gene told them, fixing them all with a very level look. ‘We’re gonna keep everything contained. Bristols, you ain’t going to pry into them files no more. You ain’t going to pry into anything except the petty cash tin when we’re low on digestives. Tyler, you’re going to explain to the press that the gun went off by mistake. Chris, you’re going to speak to them meat-heads in forensics and get ’em to issue an official report that says Carroll’s gun was faulty, which is why it went off in Tyler’s hand.’
‘Wilco, Guv,’ Chris winked, tapping the side of his nose. ‘Understood.’
‘All in all, that should buy is a bit of breathing space,’ Gene declared. ‘And we’re going to make use of that space. We’re going to pick up Gould’s trail, zero in on him, and nail him before he gets his hands on any more ex-coppers. Ray, I don’t care what it takes, get me leads. Earles, if he exists, or anyone else … Damn it, I know that name!’ He shook his head, refocused himself. ‘Whatever it takes, Ray. Any skeletons what have escaped from the CID cupboards are in line to get royally nicked. And them what haven’t escaped are damn well gonna stay rattlin’ right where they are! You getting what I’m saying, Gladys?’
He glowered at Annie, but she seemed oblivious to him, her thoughts many miles away.
‘Dozy mare,’ Gene muttered. And then, ‘Boys – we can get through this and come up smelling of lavender. Just don’t let me down.’
‘We won’t, Guv,’ said Ray and Chris in unison.
Gene nodded thoughtfully, drew deeply on his cigarette, and said ‘Right then. I can enjoy me beer now.’
Fag in one hand, pint in the other, Ray gave Annie a sour look and said: ‘Look at that face. There’s nowt point in ‘avin’ totty round the department if it wears an expression like a bulldog with a hornet up its fanny.’
Chris giggled.
Annie slammed down her drink and tried to walk out, but Gene blocked her like a wall.
‘Nope, you’re staying,’ he intoned, looming over her.
‘Back off, Gene,’ Sam put in.
‘The team stays tog
ether,’ Gene ordained. ‘And that goes for you too, Bristols, even if you are just the tea girl now.’
‘I said back off, Gene.’
‘This bird can’t be trusted, Tyler. She might start digging out more of them bloody files.’
‘With a face on her like a bulldog with a hornet up its fanny!’ snickered Chris, captivated by the phrase.
Ray smirked and shot a look at Sam: ‘It ain’t a hornet stuck up her fanny, Chris. I think it’s a DI.’
Sam threw a punch, but Ray ducked away, grinning. Nelson looked across at them, weighing up the situation, deciding whether or not to intervene.
‘Settle down, class!’ Gene said. ‘Ray, smoke your fag. Tyler, stop being a nob-end. Chris –’
‘I ain’t done nuffing!’ whined Chris.
‘– keep doing nuffing, it suits you grand,’ Gene said. And then he turned to Annie. ‘And as for you, WPC Legs-Like-Stan-Bowles, I’ve got my beady little eye on you. You’re on probation. From now on, you don’t go out of my sight, not if you want to hold on to the pretend job you do in my department. Capisce?’
‘I’m not one of your villains,’ Annie challenged him.
‘No, but you sometimes play on their side.’ Gene puffed out his chest.
‘Oh, right, so you’re blaming me for the deaths of Carroll and Walsh?’
‘You didn’t pull the trigger, petal, but you gave somebody bloody good directions for pointing the gun.’
‘So what?’
Annie’s manner so cold, so abrupt, so totally out of character that even Gene was shocked. Chris’s jaw dropped. Ray laughed. Sam didn’t know whether to rush forward and put his arms around Annie or let her have this thing out with Gene.
Annie was at last making eye contact with Gene. In fact, she was boring holes into him with the ferocity of her stare.
‘Carroll, Walsh, Darby …’ she said, her voice low and full of hate. ‘Why should I give a damn about the lives of these men?’
‘Has a gasket blown inside your tiny control panel or summat?’ Ray put in angrily. ‘Them are coppers you’re talking about, Cartwright. Them are our lads.’