by David Carter
Evans guffawed, a single abrupt laugh.
The lift stopped high up on one of the observation decks. Old George opened the doors, and Evans stepped out, as the prisoners waited for Devlin.
‘After you, ladies,’ said Devlin, beckoning with his truncheon, ‘it’s your party.’
They ambled from the lift and made their way toward the floor-to-ceiling glass on the far side of the room and peered out. Far below, the ambulance was still there, its lights glowing, and the trannie van too, and the few streetlights heading back south toward Lytham, or north toward Fleetwood. Inland, across the town, there were occasional dim lights, but for the most part the city was asleep, just as they wished they were.
‘Follow me,’ said Devlin, and they went through to a larger observation area. This room possessed a glass floor. Devlin stood in the middle, tapping the truncheon on his right calve, tapping the glass beneath his feet. The others stayed well clear. No matter how many times experts might say it was safe to stand on thick plate glass, not too many people were willing to take the risk, not to begin with, not until they had witnessed other fatter, heavier people prove it really was safe.
There was another man in the observation room.
He was leaning back against the wall, his hands clasped in front of him, in a forced relaxed pose. The guy was surrounded by a thick dark overcoat, and on his face sat a contented smile. He grinned at the newcomers. Martin knew him. It was Inspector Jarvis Smeggan.
Martin was surprised and alarmed to see him standing there. Why had he travelled over three hundred miles? To see Martin again? Neither of the other prisoners appeared to recognise the guy, and Martin guessed he was there for his benefit, and he didn’t like it.
‘Good evening, Inspector,’ said Devlin exchanging glances with Smeggan.
‘Hello, Gary,’ said Smeggan. ‘Dead on time as usual.’
‘We try,’ said Devlin, looking back at his charges as a collie dog might at difficult sheep.
On the left wall was another lift entrance, twin metal doors that looked new.
‘Open up,’ said Devlin, nodding at the doors.
Old George in his expensive silver waistcoat limped toward the exit, inserted his security key and pressed the solitary red button. The doors opened and an icy wind roared in. It was an exit to nowhere. The prisoners backed away to the furthest wall, as the sarge and corporal clasped on to their caps.
Devlin went confidently toward the void and stood close to the edge. He peered out, and down, swaying as he did so in the roaring wind.
‘It’s a long way down,’ he said.
‘Certainly is,’ said George. ‘The tower is 518 feet and 9 inches to the very top.’
‘Really? That much?’ said Devlin, looking into George’s face, and back over his shoulder at the chickens huddled behind him.
Smeggan remained leaning on the wall, observing, grinning, and silent.
‘Weston?’ said Devlin. ‘Get your arse over here.’
‘Sir?’ said Weston nervously, as he edged toward the sergeant.
‘Here man! I want to ask you something.’
‘OK,’ said Weston, taking great care where he planted his feet.
‘Face me man, face me! Are you frightened of me, or what?’
‘No, sir, not really sir, a bit, perhaps.’
‘Stand there, in front of me.’
Weston obeyed.
‘Take a look.... there.... outside.’
Weston snatched the briefest possible glance, before turning back to the sergeant’s eyes.
‘Long way down?’ repeated Devlin.
‘It is, sir, yes.’
‘I want to ask you something, Weston.’
‘Yes, sir, anything, sir.’
‘Did you really mean what you said about fixing me up with an eighteen year old girl for the weekend?’
Weston imagined he detected a distant spark in Devlin’s eyes. He thought he saw a way out.
‘Yes, sir, I did sir, I mean, I can sir. If you really want.’
‘Good man; and how much is that going to cost me? For a nice young lady.’
‘Not so much, sir, a couple of hundred, maybe. It would be money well spent. I’d fix you up with someone clean and fresh, if you get my drift. No street whore, no worn out fat cat, and that’s a fact. You wouldn’t be disappointed, sarge, I can promise you that. Bit younger, if you like.’
‘Thought as much. Do you know something, I am getting really interested.’
‘I can fix it, sir, honest I can. No probs.’
Devlin slowly raised his right hand and tapped Weston playfully across the cheek as if to confirm the deal. ‘I’m up for it,’ he said. ‘You fix it as soon as we get back to the hut.’
‘Yes, sir,’ said Weston, relaxing, eager to curry favour, and get away from the ledge on the edge. ‘I will sir, I will.’
Devlin tapped him again; and made to tap his face. He balled his fist and smashed it into Weston’s cheek, an old fashioned haymaker of a blow; landing on the side of Weston’s damaged mouth.
Weston screamed and staggered to his right.
One step, two step, and over. Tumbling away into oblivion, his final screams lost on the roaring wind. His final thought, a mystery forever.
‘Jesus!’ shouted Owens, taking a step forward for a closer look before thinking twice. Martin glanced at Smeggan. The man was grinning, as if enjoying a show in the ballroom downstairs. Martin guessed the performance was for his benefit. But why?
‘You heard what he said, didn’t you?’ said Devlin, glancing at the others.
Right on cue, Corporal Evans said, ‘Heard what, sir?’
‘I think you all heard him clearly enough, volunteering to procure young girls as prostitutes in an effort to live off immoral earnings. You did hear that, didn’t you?’ said Devlin, glaring at Owens and Martin.
‘Yes, sir,’ bleated Owens, ‘I heard every word.’
‘And you Reamse, you heard it too?’
‘I heard everything,’ said Martin coldly. ‘Everything.’
‘Good,’ said Devlin, ‘fine and dandy,’ peering at them in turn, false relief in his words. ‘He slipped didn’t he? Slipped and fell, that’s how it was.’
There was a second’s silence, before Owens picked up the theme.
‘He slipped and fell, sir. I saw it all. He slipped and fell.’
Devlin glared at Martin, challenging him to say different.
‘He slipped and fell,’ confirmed Martin. ‘Nothing could be done.’
Devlin nodded, apparently satisfied.
‘Nothing could be done,’ he repeated Martin’s words. Then he looked out across the city and took in a deep breath, before apparently seeing something in the distance that no-one else saw.
‘Oliver!’ he said, ‘Come here!’
Owens glanced at the sergeant, then at Martin, and back at the sarge, not knowing what to say. ‘Sir?’
‘Come here, Oliver, when I tell you.’
‘Sir,’ said Owens, as he edged toward the man.
‘Look me in the eye!’
Owens struggled with that. Devlin’s eyes were dark and cold and strong and they seemed to glare right through him. When he finally managed it, his eyes darted away. A mistake, for once he averted his line of sight, he found himself looking out, and looking down, into the void. He switched back to the sarge, and then into the room, at Martin, and the weird silent guy leaning on the wall, and the dopey Corporal who didn’t seem to have that much to say. Anywhere but out.... and down.
‘Are you gay, Oliver?’
‘No, sir. Certainly not, sir. My girlfriend’s name is Shirley, she’s thirty-one, and dark haired and well stacked. Quite pretty, if you must know.’
‘I don’t want a bloody description!’
‘Sorry, sir.’
‘And this Shirley woman, she’s not for sale as well, is she?’
‘No, sir, certainly not sir, never!’
‘That’s good, Oliver. I can’t abide th
at kind of business, makes my skin crawl. Sordid and filthy, we can do without it. No, let’s forget her; I’d like to tell you a little story.’
‘A story, sir?’
‘Yes, Oliver. You like stories?’
‘Oh yes, sir, least I did when I was little.’
‘We all like stories, don’t we?’
‘Yes, sir, we do, sir.’
‘Well this little story concerns this gentleman here, the chap leaning on the wall. His name is Inspector Jarvis Smeggan, and he is an Inspector in His Majesty’s SPATs, not a word I like to use, but it is so much easier than saying Special Police Against Terrorism, every time.’
They all glanced at Smeggan. He stared back, revelling in his moment in the limelight, the corners of his long and narrow mouth turning upward.
‘He is investigating an important case. Dear me. Very important.’
‘I am sure he is, sir?’ said Owens.
‘Isn’t he.... Reamse?’
Owens glanced at Martin, immediately realising his fate was somehow entwined with Martin’s answers.
‘Oh, Martin,’ said Owens, ‘you’ve got to help me.’
‘Don’t go getting ahead of yourself,’ said Devlin, reaching up and playfully clasping Owens’ right shoulder.
Owens jumped, and almost wet himself.
‘Now then, Reamse,’ said Devlin, ‘Inspector Smeggan here, is one of the leading detectives in the SPATs, if not the leading ’tec, though I suspect you know that already.’
Smeggan somehow managed to look even more pleased with himself.
Devlin continued. ‘He has travelled all the way from the south coast because he is convinced that you know a little more about this Tinbergen Papers thingy, or whatever it is called. Is that not the case, Inspector?’
Smeggan spoke for the first time, though he didn’t feel the need to stand upright, as he continued to lean against the wall.
‘Fact is,’ he said, inspecting his fingernails. ‘I have a new boss starting next week, and it would be most beneficial to me if I could provide new and interesting information. It would sit well on my record, you see, and more important than that, it would be of great benefit to you gentlemen here tonight. Great benefit.’
‘That sounds simple enough,’ said Devlin. ‘So?’ he continued, turning back toward Martin. ‘What do you know, Joe?’
A moment’s silence, broken by Owens’ bleating.
‘Come on Martin, you must tell them everything you know. Don’t you see? My life could depend on this.’
Martin looked at a shaking Owens, and Devlin, and Evans, and Smeggan in turn. Old George had wisely vanished.
‘I have nothing to tell,’ he said. ‘If I did, I would, but there is nothing. I thought Inspector Smeggan understood that. He’s had a wasted journey. I have told him everything I know, and LIDA confirmed it.’
‘No, no, no, no, no!’ snapped Devlin.
‘Tell him everything, for God’s sake!’ screamed Owens. ‘For Jesus sake, tell him everything! You must!’
Martin shrugged his shoulders.
Owens wet himself.
‘Oh dear!’ said Devlin, staring down at the steaming yellow liquid, wending its way toward the exit, where it began dripping and dribbling over the edge, before being caught by the wind.
Smeggan laughed and whispered: ‘Soft bugger. Soft arse.’
Owens reached up with both hands and cupped them around Devlin’s ample shoulders.
‘Please sir, please, I’m begging you, don’t do it, sir, don’t. I know I have done some stupid things, but I don’t deserve this.’
Tears began to flow.
‘Get your gay, wimpy hands off me, ya Nancy. We don’t know where they have been!’
Owens retrieved his hands, and oddly, didn’t appear to know what to do with them. Even at his side they felt and looked awkward and uncomfortable, as if they had appeared out of nowhere, like a tadpole’s.
‘So, Reamse?’ said Devlin. ‘It’s decision time.’
Owens made to go to Martin.
The sergeant raised his truncheon. ‘Don’t you dare move off that bloody spot!’
Evans stepped forward and restrained the prisoner from behind.
Owens grimaced and returned to pleading.
‘Martin, Martin! For Christ’s sake, don’t do this to me, don’t allow this to happen. Don’t desert me. Don’t make them do it, Martin, please Martin.... Please! How would you like it, mate? Please, I am begging.... ’
‘Sorry, Ronnie,’ said Martin, ‘but I really don’t know anything. I can’t tell them things I don’t know. I can’t help them, and I can’t help you.’
‘You bastard!’ screamed Owens. ‘You bloody bastard! I’d never have done that to you. Never! I’d never do that to anyone! How can you do this to me? How can you live with yourself?’
Martin averted his eyes, straight into Smeggan’s line of vision, and when he turned back, he fleetingly glimpsed Owens’ feet in the air, disappearing into the void. It had taken but a gentle shove. Ronnie Owens, also known as Oliver, had departed into the Lancashire night, and all that remained was his final, frantic call.
‘B A S T A R D S!’
‘Oh dear,’ muttered Devlin, as he glanced at Smeggan. ‘He seems to have slipped as well.’
The Inspector nodded gently, as if issuing authority to continue.
Devlin glanced at Martin’s face.
‘Well, Reamse?’ he said gently, as if discussing something mundane, such as who might read the lesson in church that Sunday.
‘Your turn next, I believe. It’s not too late to save yourself.’
Twenty-Eight
Joss and the new recruits to the EWP were bussed almost twenty miles to their new quarters east of King’s Lynn. She overheard one of the officers talking about it and recalled her all too recent geography lessons. King’s Lynn, an east coast port, right? So how could you go twenty miles east of there, but you could, and more besides, and she knew it because of the previous year’s curriculum changes.
Foreign geography lessons had been cut right back. No longer would they learn of the pampas and the outback and the veldt, because home geography now dominated lessons, from the wilds of Norfolk to Cape Wrath, and beyond.
Despite their pleaded requests no mobiles were ever returned, and all cash had been seized, rendering it impossible to use the few public telephones that still existed.
The new quarters could not have been more different from Harlingdon Hall. The prefabricated huts were Second World War RAF vintage, and had never once provided adequate accommodation. They sat uneasily on flat damp ground where the east wind blew in straight from Russia. The huts were falling into disrepair. Most of the roofs leaked, some of the walls had decayed to such an extent that occasional icy blasts crashed clean through, persuading the inhabitants to groan in protest. Heating was minimal and only turned on in times of dire need, and furnishings, what little of them there were, belonged in a Norwich museum.
Joss’s hut accommodated sixty girls in two rows of thirty, and overseeing them, were two women officers who wore white long-sleeve blouses and black trousers. They were full of their newfound importance and were over-fond of saying: ‘You will just have to make the best of it!’
They didn’t have to live, wash, and sleep in those sagging grey shacks.
The girls were issued with similar black trousers, and what were described as blue blouses. It was clear to everyone that the garments were oft-washed men’s blue shirts. Years before, they had been issued to the schoolboy matelots at the recently re-opened HMS Ganges, that lay eighty miles to the south at Shotley Gate, where the rivers Orwell and Stour are spliced.
The shirts had sat pressed and ironed in some Ministry of Defence store ever since, undisturbed, but for the occasional interested moth, for nigh on twenty-five years. Joss’s shirt was damp, baggy, and ill fitting, and she wasn’t alone in that.
At the first roll call fifteen of the girls were named and called forward, Joss inclu
ded. It turned out the fifteen were Party members. They were to be rewarded by being granted a head start on their companions. They were each issued with a collar stud badge featuring the blue and gold Lion ensign of the National Party of Great Britain. Joss was chuffed to bits, all the preferred ones were, and they wore their badges with pride. It helped too that the clearly defined Party members were deemed to be in sole charge of the huts, and on work details too, if and when the officers were absent. Better still, those fifteen were named as John Hops.
‘Why are we called John Hops?’ said one dazzlingly tall and skinny girl, through her squeaky voice.
‘Cockney rhyming slang!’ answered one of the officers, as if that would explain everything.
‘But.... but... rhyming with what?’
‘Cops, dimmo! Cops!’
Joss was a John Hop, and she liked the idea of carrying some form of authority, however meagre, however it had been obtained. She wanted to call and tell Frank all about it, she wanted to see Frank again, and she wondered if she should have gone up the reed beds with him after all. Too late now, that would have to wait for another day, just so long as she had another opportunity.
In the morning, they would all be told what was expected of them, and the John Hops would be taken into a side room and separately briefed. It would not be long before the Hops were feared and loathed in equal measure by the rest of the troop, a loathing that was ratcheted up when it was seen that the Johns also received better rations. It paid to be a John Hop, in more ways than one, and though the others were regularly encouraged to apply to join the Party too, curiously not a soul did, not then anyhow, and this pleased the John Hops, for authority and perks were all the better, when they were shared by the few.
BACK AT HOME, JEMIMA had noticed food going missing. Fact was, they were getting through more food than when Joss had been at home, and that didn’t make any sense. Eve continued to eat frugally, at least in public, and she certainly had not put on any weight, and neither Jemima or Colin had ever been particularly big eaters. Someone was responsible for the escalating grocery bill, but who?
Jemima had asked Eve about it in a round about kind of way without receiving any satisfactory answer. Eve was clever in the way she went about taking food. She never took anything extra when her mother was close by. On the spur of the moment, Jemima decided to take action. She followed her daughter to school. Perhaps there was someone there who wasn’t being properly fed. These were strange times and Eve was a noble girl, Jemmie knew that, and she would have admired her daughter all the more if that were the case. She discovered nothing, but at lunchtime returned, keeping her distance, ducking down behind a fancy newly constructed townhouse being built for some local Party bigwig. She didn’t have to wait long.
