[Lambert and Hook 20] - Something Is Rotten

by J M Gregson

  On this particular morning, Lambert had arranged for a meeting with Detective Sergeant Bert Hook and Detective Inspector Chris Rushton. Bert had worked with the Chief Superintendent for twelve years now, so that each usually knew the other’s thoughts without them being put into words. DI Rushton, in contrast, felt himself to be a generation behind Lambert and almost as far behind Hook. John Lambert had been given a Home Office extension to his service in recognition of his record as a thief-taker and solver of serious crimes. He had a reputation which extended far beyond his local celebrity.

  Rushton was a career CID man, his eye always upon promotion, and he regarded Bert Hook with deep suspicion because Bert had a few years earlier refused the possibility of promotion to inspector for no better reason than that he was perfectly happy as a detective sergeant.

  Chris Rushton was not only serious but often rather humourless, which meant that the two older men were wont to indulge themselves with teasing their younger colleague whenever the routine of detective work became boring. Rushton was never quite sure when the duo who had worked together for so long were pulling his leg and when they were serious.

  It was the temptation to have some fun at Rushton’s expense which now proved fatal for Bert Hook. When they had dealt with the fairly routine business of the day, Bert said casually, ‘I had a visitor last night. A lady who is the driving force behind a local amateur dramatic group. They’re going to put on a production of Hamlet: a rather truncated version, I gather. But I think they could have a part available for you, Chris, if you play your cards right. These societies are always short of handsome young men.’

  Chris Rushton looked at him with a suspicion born of long and embarrassing experience. ‘Acting? Me? You must be kidding.’

  Hook continued as if the younger man had never spoken. ‘You’d meet lots of young totty, you know, during a production. And after a triumph on stage they’d be putty in your lively young hands.’

  Rushton’s love life was a perennial source of interest to the older pair, who were both happily married. He had been divorced three years earlier, an experience more common in the police service than in almost any other occupation. He was six feet tall, without any grey in his short-cut black hair, and conventionally handsome. But a natural diffidence and a fear of rebuff held him back from forming new relationships with the opposite sex. He said stiffly, ‘I’m not interested in what you call “totty”, Bert. Casual liaisons are not in my line.’

  ‘But an appearance on stage would be good for you. It would bring out your hidden depths.’ Hook looked to Lambert for support.

  John Lambert nodded his agreement. ‘If there’s a vacancy for a juvenile lead, you’d be ideal, Chris. Hamlet might be a bit much for a first attempt, but I can see you winning the ladies’ hearts as Laertes or Horatio.’

  ‘Horatio?’ Chris Rushton remembered some tale from primary school about a hero on a bridge, but too vaguely for him to venture more.

  ‘Friend of the prince. But Laertes might be more in your line - a much more flamboyant part. Wouldn’t you agree, Bert?’

  ‘Indeed I would. He gets to leap into a grave and clasp his dead sister’s body to his bosom at one point - very much your kind of thing, Chris.’

  Rushton was sure now that they were having him on. He said very firmly, ‘I’m not going on to any stage. And certainly not in Shakespeare. Not at any price. And that’s final.’

  Hook sighed. ‘It’s a great pity that you should spurn these opportunities I work so hard to secure for you.’

  It was then that John Lambert said, ‘How did this occasion arise, Bert? You say that this lady visited you in connection with a proposed production. But she couldn’t even have known about this budding actor in our midst at the time, surely?’

  Bert shot a sharp glance at his chief’s lined but studiously innocent face. ‘It was a Mrs Dalrymple.You may have heard of her: she’s a JR She’s also the motivating force behind the Mettlesham Players.’

  ‘And why was she visiting you, Bert?’ Hook shifted uncomfortably on his chair and looked at the wall behind Lambert. ‘She was asking me if I’d care to take part in the production, actually. I told her that that was impossible, of course.’

  ‘Really? She is obviously a very determined lady, this Mrs Dalrymple. And a perceptive one, to spot such dramatic potential in a copper. What part had she in mind for you, Bert?’

  ‘Well, we never really got as far as discussing parts. Not seriously. Anyone taking part would have to audition, of course, and even then I suppose they’d want to look at all the possibilities for—’

  ‘What part, Bert?’

  ‘Polonius, actually.’ Bert transferred his attention from the wall to the carpet in front of Lambert’s desk.

  ‘Ah!’ Lambert’s long-drawn-out monosyllable carried a wealth of suggestion.

  Hook reflected that it was no advantage to work with a Chief Superintendent who knew his Shakespeare. Most senior officers wouldn’t have known much about Polonius and his implications. Bert said doggedly, ‘As I said, I told her that it was impossible. So it’s not an issue.’

  ‘Oh, I think you were a little hasty there, Bert. Pm sure that the Chief Constable would regard it as good PR for you to be involved in a local Shakespeare production. Especially as Polonius.’

  ‘Who’s Polonius?’ said Rushton, catching on belatedly to the idea that he might turn the tables on Hook here.

  ‘Key part in the play,’ said Lambert. ‘The whole production could come unstuck without a good Polonius. He’s a most entertaining old bore, if that’s not a contradiction in terms.’

  ‘Typecasting, then,’ said Rushton.This was a new experience for him: it was immensely pleasing to be contributing to the repartee instead of being the butt of it himself.

  ‘He gets to die dramatically, too,’ said Lambert, warming to his task. ‘Hamlet stabs him through the arras.’

  Rushton winced extravagantly. ‘Sounds very painful, that.’

  ‘And then Hamlet says, “Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool, farewell”. It’s one of the most ruthless epitaphs in literature, to my mind.’

  Rushton savoured the words of the quotation for a moment. Then he said, ‘It sounds as this would be the ideal part for you, Bert. I can see why this lady came looking for you.’

  Hook favoured the pair of them with a molten look. ‘I told Mrs Dalrymple that it was quite impossible. That my duties here would not allow it.’

  Lambert beamed at him. ‘Oh, I think we could accommodate your participation, Bert. With a little imagination and goodwill within the CID section, we could ensure that you’d be able to attend all the necessary rehearsals. Wouldn’t you agree, Chris?’

  ‘Certainly, sir. I’m sure I can adjust the duty rotas to take account of DS Hook’s outside commitments. I expect everyone concerned will be only too anxious to help, once they understand that Bert is making his contribution to local culture. Providing, that is, that you are favourable to the idea yourself, sir. Our system demands that Bert works very closely with you, and if you feel that you might be unable to release him for this...’

  Lambert pretended to give the matter grave consideration before he reached a decision. ‘I think I must make the sacrifice, Chris. We have a duty to make our contribution to the wider world outside the police service; you’ll recall the Chief Constable telling the press only last week that we don’t exist in a vacuum. And we owe Bert some consideration for his years of faithful service. He’s a modest man, but I can see that he’s set his heart on this. I think we should give him his head.’

  Hook said desperately, ‘But I don’t want to—’

  ‘That’s settled then,’ said Lambert with satisfaction.

  ‘If you let us know the dates of the eventual production, I’m sure I’ll be able to sell lots of tickets around the station,’ said Rushton brightly. ‘We might even be able to fill a coach, with the enthusiasm I anticipate for this. Will you be wearing tights, Bert?’

  ‘I’ll
fail the audition!’ muttered Hook. He sounded at that moment very determined that he would.

  ‘Nonsense!’ said John Lambert loyally. ‘You’re a natural for the part, Bert. I can see you being quite a memorable Polonius. I’m sure this will be a production which all of us will enjoy. I find it always adds something when you have a personal interest in the performance.’

  ‘I’ll put it in the station newsletter in due course,’ said Rushton happily. ‘And I can probably get you some wider publicity in all the nicks within forty miles of here. I’ll get back to my computer and give some thought to that immediately, if there’s nothing else, sir.’

  ‘By all means,’ said Lambert expansively. ‘Fortunately, this seems to be a quiet time for serious crime in Gloucestershire and Herefordshire.’

  It chilled Bert Hook’s soul to hear the colleague he revered above all others echoing the sentiments which that awful Mrs Dalrymple had uttered from the depths of her ignorance. He left the room without catching Lambert’s eye, conscious of how comprehensively the chief had cooperated with Chris Rushton into turning the tables upon him.

  ‘Judas!’ Bert snarled as he went.

  An hour later, DS Hook had forgotten all about his possible involvement in Hamlet.

  Bert had always maintained that the best way to put the problems of your private life into perspective was to immerse yourself in your work. He had done that successfully throughout his career, even during the week when his younger son had almost died of meningitis. He could surely do it now in the face of this much less serious and faintly comic intrusion into his settled domestic world.

  The interrogation of a suspect in a minor crime was just what he needed. It was also something he was very good at. That is why Lambert suggested that Hook might be brought into what seemed a routine case of shoplifting. Even Chris Rushton admitted that Bert Hook, with his unthreatening, village-bobby exterior, usually seemed to get more out of young tearaways than officers who were supposedly closer to them in age and outlook.

  Becky Clegg was hardly a young tearaway. But she was a twenty-one-year-old with a history of petty offences. The young, fresh-faced uniformed constable who had arrested her when called to the scene had made no progress at all; Ms Clegg had treated his interrogation with something approaching contempt. He was relieved to sit beside Bert Hook for this second session of questioning, though he secretly thought that the old lad was wasting his time with this tough, streetwise young woman.

  ‘Do you want a brief?’ Hook asked the girl. ‘No need. I ain’t done nothing. I’ll be out of this place in half an hour. Without any help from some poncy lawyer.’

  Bert Hook nodded thoughtfully. ‘Could be a mistake, that. But I like a woman with her own opinions. Even when they’re mistaken ones.’

  He looked for a moment as if he was out of touch with this, as if he had forgotten the procedures for such trivial things through his long involvement with Chief Superintendent Lambert and more serious crimes. Then he set the cassette recorder working and announced the time of commencement of the interview and the names of those present. He set a bright silver ladies’ watch on the square table of the interview room and said nothing for several seconds, allowing the discomfort to grow in the smooth but slightly pinched features of the girl on the other side of the table.

  Eventually Hook said with deliberate banality, ‘Nice watch, this.’

  ‘Fancy bit of bling.’ Becky Clegg tried to produce the phrase with contempt and dismiss the watch from her consideration. But she found it difficult to take her eyes from the bright little object: the only alternative vision seemed to be that of the earnest, unmoving, avuncular face beyond it.

  ‘Expensive bling, Ms Clegg. The most expensive watch in the shop, in fact.’

  Becky shrugged her shoulders extravagantly. But she found that what had been an easy, automatic gesture with the young man who had arrested her was now a deliberate, self-conscious effort. ‘I wouldn’t know about that, would I?’

  ‘Oh, I think you would, Becky. I think you know a lot more than you’d like us to think you do.’

  ‘Say what you have to say, pig, and send me on my way. You can waste your time all you want, but don’t waste mine.’ It should have been instinctive, the kind of scorn she had thrown earlier at the young man in uniform. It had been effective then. Now, when she threw the words at this thick-set man in plain clothes, who might have been the father she had not seen for years, they seemed no more than a ritual defiance, a few phrases of aggression which were necessary to her but had not the slightest effect on the man in the grey suit.

  Hook scarcely seemed to register what she said; he was certainly totally unruffled by it - he knew it would be difficult for the girl to maintain her aggression while she wasn’t getting a response. He looked again at the watch and said, ‘I expect your fingerprints are all over the evidence.’

  She almost sneered at him that she wasn’t that stupid, that she’d had her white gloves on at the time. She only just avoided what would have been a ridiculous beginner’s mistake. She was shaken for a moment; perhaps this old fool warranted a little more attention than she had first thought. She said, ‘You’ll find that the young piglet who made the mistake of arresting me has put his dabs all over that thing!’

  Hook looked at her carefully made-up young face, at the lightly flowered dress beneath it, where most girls of her age would have had a shirt and jeans. ‘Dress carefully for these forays into the retail world, do you, Becky?’

  She dressed very carefully, according to the shops she was visiting. The preparation was part of the pleasure, when you lived by your wits and lifted stuff for a living. She didn’t like the way that this man seemed to understand that. She said sullenly, ‘I dress to please myself, nobody else.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sure you do, Becky. And to suit the kind of adventures you plan to undertake on any particular day.’ He nodded slowly, as if digesting that thought, then said suddenly, ‘How’d you come by the watch, Becky?’

  The question had come at her like a bullet, after all his relaxed observations. She had known it must come, that it was at the centre of this, but the manner of its arrival was still a shock to her. ‘It was in my bag.’

  ‘Exactly. You wouldn’t be here now if it hadn’t been. You were stopped outside the door of the shop, with the item in your bag.’

  ‘Yeah. Strange, innit?’ Her language changed to a different argot when she dropped into her automatic defiance of the police.

  ‘Not strange at all, Becky, to my mind.’ He looked very calm - almost as if he was trying to help her.

  That increased her irritation. ‘Someone must have dropped it into my bag.’

  ‘Must they?’

  ‘Yeah. Only possible explanation, innit?’

  ‘No, Becky. Overwhelmingly the most probable explanation is that you put it there yourself, when you thought no one was watching you.’

  ‘So prove it, pig! Or stop wasting our time and let me out of the sty.’

  ‘Becky, the store detective saw you lifting it.’

  ‘Them bastards always say it’s us kids! The sods pick on us, and stupid pricks like you go along with it!’ She found it difficult to get any real indignation into her words. The persecution suddenly seemed as preposterous to her as it obviously was to Hook.

  ‘You’re not a kid any more, Becky. You’re twenty-one years old and a responsible adult or so they tell us. And I don’t think the magistrate will see it your way. Not with your record.’

  ‘Be his word against mine then, won’t it? The word of a poncy store detective, who has to pinch people to justify his job.’

  ‘And we both know whom the magistrate will believe, don’t we, Becky? Just as we know whom the jury will believe, when you go on to greater crimes and end up in the Crown Court.’

  She said, ‘It’s once a villain always a villain, isn’t it, with you lot? Anyone with a record doesn’t have a chance.’ But suddenly she didn’t have the energy for this ritual of confront
ation, this meaningless flinging of phrases into the faces of people on the other side of the law. Her carapace of contempt for these pigs was cracking about her, almost as if it had been a physical thing. She had been proud of her hardness, of her brash defiance of the law. Now she was suddenly close to tears.

  Hook watched her, his own face an inscrutable professional mask, showing neither anger nor concern. After a few long seconds, he reached across, announced that the interview was suspended and switched off the cassette recorder. Then he said with a world-weary harshness, ‘You’re as guilty as hell, Becky Clegg. It’s a straightforward case for the boys of the Crown Prosecution Service. We’ll get a conviction without any trouble, if we want it. With your record of thefts and violence, you might even get a custodial sentence, if we press for it.’

  It all made sense. Becky stared wearily at the desk. cSo get on with it then. I’m pissed off with all this.’

  ‘So am I, Becky. Thoroughly pissed off with it. This is a tedious business for us. Lots of paperwork to secure a routine conviction. To mark one step further in the progress of a young offender into a serious criminal.’ Becky felt a sudden shaft of hope coursing into her veins. No fool like an old fool, that woman in the hostel had told her - though she had been speaking about relieving an old fool of his money, in a very different context than this. She said, ‘So let me off with a caution, then. I won’t do it again, honest.’ Her whining disclaimer came out all wrong - it sounded like the hollow assurance that she knew it was, like a caricature of remorse, when she was trying to produce something which sounded more genuine. Hook scarcely seemed to hear it, so preoccupied did he appear with his own thoughts. ‘You were in a council home for four years, weren’t you, Becky?’

  ‘Yeah.’ She was cautious, wondering where this was going. She’d have thrown in the stuff about abuse, as she had years ago with the social worker, but something told her that lies wouldn’t wash with this man. She said quietly, ‘You don’t know what it’s like, being in a home.’