by J M Gregson
Then they were away and he was into the deliberately convoluted lines of his character, struggling hard to make sense of them, even as he realized with horror that he was being auditioned. The others were sure of their parts, but he was being vetted by being made to read this, his character’s most important scene, where he would have to interact with Claudius and Gertrude and then with the nimble-witted Hamlet. The others seemed to be relaxing and enjoying this, but he knew he was on trial.
Through the tension of his absorption, Bert sensed that it wasn’t going too badly. He managed to stress the right phrases, and he even caught the occasional snigger from his companions as he produced some roundabout phrase as if it were a witty epigram. Maggie Dalrymple enjoyed telling him imperiously to produce ‘more matter, with less art’, and the others laughed out loud at the effect, so he must have done his part all right.
When the scene was over, the three experienced people who had been reading with him somehow let him know that he had done well, without being so patronizing as to put the idea directly into words. Bert Hook was absurdly pleased with himself when Terry Logan began to discuss rehearsal schedules, and he realized first that what had seemed an absurdly ambitious project was actually getting off the ground and secondly that he seemed to have secured the part of Polonius.
It was only when the evening was coming to an end and he was studying which of the rehearsals he would need to attend that he realized that he had never delivered the one important speech of the evening, the one he had prepared for himself before he came here. The one in which he set out clearly and unequivocally the reasons why he could not possibly be involved in this ridiculous Hamlet venture.
It was whilst he was still wondering how his perspectives could have changed so completely that there was a sudden disturbance in the dimness away from the lights at the back of the hall. ‘I’m sorry to be so late. They kept us way after the time they said. There were five of us, you see, and—’
‘No matter, my dear,’ Maggie Dalrymple interrupted her magisterially. ‘You’re here now, and that’s all that matters. I’m afraid you’re too late to join in anything tonight, but do come and meet the core members of our happy band.’
She ushered forward to the lighter end of the hall a slim young woman with short dark hair, wearing a flowered dress which was unusual for one of her age and which seemed to Hook vaguely familiar. Maggie Dalrymple announced, ‘This is the young lady who I thought might be our Ophelia. She couldn’t be here earlier because she’s been attending a job interview.’
As the girl came into the full, rather harsh light at the front of the hall, Bert Hook saw with a shock that it was Becky Clegg.
Four
DS Bert Hook was determined to keep his counsel at Oldford Police Station the next morning, despite the pointed questioning he knew he would face about his attendance at the Mettlesham Players’ rehearsal the previous night.
The station sergeant, who was almost as old as Bert and much more set in his ways, studied the plain-clothes man closely over his glasses as DS Hook came past his desk and moved towards the CID section. His scrutiny was so noticeable that Bert stopped before the big swing doors and turned back to him. ‘All right, Stan. What’s the joke?’
‘Oh, no joke, Bert. No joke at all. Just a natural curiosity, I suppose - we’re not allowed to make jokes about it any more.’ Bert sighed. ‘I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.’
Sergeant Stan Smith looked carefully around the deserted reception area of the station over which he presided, as if it were important that no one should hear what he had to say. ‘I was watching your walk, if you must know, Bert,’ he said in a hoarse dramatic whisper.
‘My walk?’
Smith looked duly embarrassed.
‘Don’t be stupid, Stan!’ Bert said, trying to sound menacing, but he could not conceal a touch of amusement, so that his words did not carry the threat he had hoped for.
Bert glared at him in the way he had been used to glare at batsmen after whistling a ball past their chins, then stalked away as if he was striding back to his mark for the next express delivery. But he found that for the next few minutes he was self-conscious about his progress, holding himself very erect and taking slightly longer strides than usual. He was glad to slump at his desk and put his elbows on its surface, whilst he immersed himself in the reports of the previous night’s break-ins. Amongst them, he found a note signed by two of his DCs, wishing him luck in his new career and encouraging him to ‘break a leg’.
Within five minutes, DI Rushton made an occasion to leave his computer and came to consult Bert about an appearance in court for the detective sergeant in a case which still did not have a date. Then he looked at him curiously and said diffidently, ‘Go all right last night, did it, Bert? The rehearsal, I mean.’
The whole of the station now seemed to know about his reluctant venture into amateur dramatics. That didn’t surprise him; he had ample evidence that the police grapevine carries gossip faster than any branch of the Women’s Institute. He said haughtily, ‘It was only a read-through with the director and a couple of other people. Rehearsals don’t begin until next week.’
‘But you got the part?’
‘It seems they still want me to play Polonius, if that’s what you mean.’ Bert couldn’t tell him that he had awoken this morning with a pleasant sense of achievement.
‘Congratulations! I’m sure you’ll be marvellous, darling.’ Chris Rushton was enjoying the unusual pleasure of teasing the man who had so often set him up as the butt of humour.
Bert said heavily, ‘Is this going to go on for the next three months?’
‘Oh, I expect so. We’ll all be anxious to collect the latest news on our new star. This place is full of culture vultures, you know. Is the actual performance as far away as that?5
‘Further. We’ll be doing largely reading and casting in the next few weeks. Intensive rehearsals will only get under way after Christmas.’ Bert noted with dismay that he was now speaking of ‘we’, then saw with even more dismay that Chris Rushton had noted it too.
‘Will you be wearing make-up for rehearsals?’
‘Of course not!’
‘Pity. I thought you might have enjoyed that aspect of it.’
Bert Hook decided not to pursue an avenue he suspected he had already explored with the station sergeant. Instead, he decided belatedly to carry the fight to the enemy and said darkly, ‘I think the part of Laertes is still up for grabs, but you’ll need to get in quickly.’
‘Not interested, Bert. Sorry.’
‘The Ophelia they’ve got lined up is very pretty. Of course, in the play they’re brother and sister, but I’m sure if you played your cards right after rehearsals you’d be in with a chance. I could—’
‘I’ve got myself a girlfriend, thank you, Bert.’ In his anxiety to stop this talk of his involvement in theatricals, the words were out before Chris Rushton could stop himself.
‘Ah! Anyone we know?’
Rushton sighed resignedly. ‘It is, actually. You interviewed her when her flatmate was killed last year. Anne Jackson.’
‘I remember her. Very pretty. A student.’
‘She didn’t go to university straight from school. There were a couple of years in between. And she’s completed her degree now. She’s currently on a teacher training course.’
‘Ten years younger than you, though.’
‘Almost that, I suppose,’ said Detective Inspector Rushton stiffly. He was intensely aware that there were exactly nine years and eleven months between him and Anne Jackson.
‘Shows that you can still pull, though. A student, eh? I expect you’ll be getting yourself a scarf and drinking in the union bar with the other lads.’
‘I certainly shall not!’
Bert noted that once he was thrown on to the defensive, Chris Rushton dropped back into his normal rather prissy mode. That was quite heartening. When Chief Superintendent Lambert came in, he managed to lure him in
to partnership in a dual lecture to the hapless Rushton about the dangers of pot for the young and the immature.
By nine-thirty, things were reassuringly back to normal.
Eight miles away from Bert Hook, on a council estate in Gloucester, two very different police officers were having very different problems.
They were both twenty-one, one male and one female, sitting self-consciously in their smart new uniforms with their hats placed on the table beside them in the stifling room. A twenty-year-old in a T-shirt was lounging back in the shabby armchair whilst they sat rather awkwardly on the upright chairs beside the table. His name was Jack Dawes; the inevitable nickname of Jackdaw had been fastened upon him at school. It had proved wholly appropriate. He was like a lean, alert bird, taking every opportunity to thieve and live by his wits.
Today he was making fools of his raw young police adversaries and all three of them knew it.
‘It’s a serious charge, armed robbery,’ said PC James Standing. He was trying to sound threatening, but the fact that he was saying this for the second time rather diminished the threat.
‘I agree with that,’ said Jack Dawes from his armchair. ‘Once you get the bloke who did it, I shouldn’t like to be in his shoes.’
PC Emma Jones said determinedly, ‘We’ve got him. He’s right here in front of us.’
Jack Dawes smiled at her, enjoying seeing the dismay that his insolence brought to the young woman’s too-revealing face. ‘They’re saying stupid things, again, Mum. I’m getting tired of it.’
His mother’s face glowed with pride at the wit of this clever son. Sally Dawes was a peroxide blonde of forty-one, running a little to fat and so hastily made up for these visitors that her face had a touch of the clown about it above the grubby neck and the breasts which were thrust artificially forward behind the sagging neckline of her blouse. ‘I should think we could have them in trouble for saying things like that, son. Maybe sue them for wrongful arrest. Get some compensation out of them. We’d like that, wouldn’t we, Jack?’
‘He isn’t under arrest, Mrs Dawes,’ said James Standing. He realized that he’d reacted too hastily and added belatedly, ‘Not yet, anyway.’
‘Not yet, not nohow, not never!’ said Jack Dawes smugly. He was a slim-faced, streetwise young man of ‘twenty going on thirty’ as his doting mother told anyone prepared to listen to her. ‘I told you, I was nowhere near that shop. You’d best be on your way and try to find the buggers who did it. Though if you ask me, the Paki bastard had it coming to him.’
‘We’re not asking you. And there’s no need for racist remarks,’ Emma Jones reminded him ill-advisedly.
‘“No need for racist remarks,”’ Jack mimicked her words in a ridiculous, high-pitched voice, as if he could undermine her sentiments by the freakishness of his delivery. ‘Oh, but there is, PC Jones. There’s every bloody need, if we’re not to be overrun with Muslim trash. But we’re going to clean up the country in the next few years. Our National Front men will be elected here in the next local elections, same as they have been in the north. We’ll take over the local councils. Then even you pigs will have to listen to the voice of the people, won’t you? We’ll be your masters, then, PC Jones.’
Jack Dawes lay even further back in his chair and crossed his legs at the ankles, to show them how relaxed he was. He wasn’t sure how much of that stuff about the National Front he believed, but he liked to show the fuzz that he wasn’t just a hoodlum, that he had intelligence and a grasp of politics.
James Standing shot a look of warning at his colleague. They didn’t want to be diverted into a racist argument which they could never win. He said, ‘Mr Joussef is a Christian, actually. He is also a man who is in his late fifties, working very hard to make an honest living. Something you might try out yourself, if you want to keep out of prison.’
Jack Dawes allowed a grin to creep across his narrow, crafty face. He was not bad-looking when he smiled, and he was well aware of that fact. He had also registered the titles of these struggling enemies, and he liked to keep reminding them how junior they were. ‘Oh, I’m trying very hard to make this honest living you talk about, PC Standing. And I’d like you to make a note of that, too, WPC Jones - you never know your luck, I might be ringing and asking you for a date, now that we’ve been introduced.’
Emma Jones hoped that the revulsion on her face was the only reaction she needed to give to that. She said hastily, ‘You threatened him with a knife to make him empty his till last night. That’s armed robbery, Mr Dawes.’ Jack wondered whether to mock her serious, slightly nervous delivery again. But he didn’t want them dwelling on that knife. And he knew that you mustn’t get too cocky with the fuzz, that being too truculent when you knew you were guilty could lead to complications. He’d seen some of his less intelligent companions get into big trouble by being too cocky. He fell back on the well-worn defence he had prepared before these two came into his house. ‘I was nowhere near the place at the time. I know that doesn’t stop you flat-foots from locking poor lads like me away, but you’ll find it difficult to frame me for this one. I got an alibi, you see, ducky.’
Emma tried not to wince away from the word and the insolent, aggressive face behind it. She’d heard much worse, in her short time as a police officer, but the fact that they were losing this one was getting to her. ‘You were there, Mr Dawes. We know that. Denying it isn’t going to help your case, in the end.’
Jack gave a little nod to his mother, who said plaintively, ‘My boy was here with me at the time. He’s a good lad, my Jack. I don’t know why it is that whenever you lot want—’
‘And what time would that be, Mrs Dawes? What time precisely?’ James Standing did his best to give the impression that she had made a mistake and he was now producing his trump card.
Panic flashed for a moment across the coarse, revealing features of Sally Dawes. Then her son said easily, ‘All night, wasn’t it, Mum? I didn’t go out at all last night, if you remember.’
‘That’s right. He’s a good boy, my Jack. Good to his mother, not like some of them. We had pie and chips and ice cream, and then we enjoyed a bit of telly together, didn’t we, son? Quite cosy, we was.’
Jack felt her overplaying her hand. Before they could ask him about the content of the programmes, he said, ‘I wasn’t really watching, though, most of the time. I was reading a book.’ He grinned brazenly at each of the two police faces in turn. ‘I like to try to improve myself, see? You should try it some time, if you ever want to make sergeant.’
PC Standing said stubbornly, ‘We have witnesses, Mr Dawes.’
‘Witnesses to some other poor bugger, not me. I wasn’t there, you see. My mam’s just told you. Or is pigs’ hearing as bad as their eyesight nowadays?’
‘The shopkeeper will identify you in an identity parade. Mr Joussef has had enough of your bullying and—’
‘No he won’t! Not if...’ Jack stopped suddenly, dropping his eyes to the carpet.
‘Not if he knows what’s good for him, you were going to say, weren’t you, Mr Dawes?’ said James Standing, seizing on his first success, wondering how he could capitalize on the man’s mistake. ‘You’re saying he’s frightened of more physical violence if he identifies you. Threatening a witness can lead to very serious charges indeed.’
He had made a mistake in spelling things out like that. It enabled the sharp-witted young man in the armchair to marshal his thoughts and recover from the gaffe he had made.
‘Now did I ever say anything like that?’ Jack Dawes asked. ‘I may think the old sod is trash, but did I offer any threat to him? Did I ever even mention physical violence?’
He turned his face of hurt innocence towards his mother.
Mrs Dawes said loyally, ‘Of course you didn’t, son.’ She turned to the two young officers. ‘You want to be careful what you say to my boy, rozzers. You haven’t got him in a cell where you can beat the shit out of him, you know. There are witnesses here to what you’re saying and the na
sty accusations you’re making, so you just be careful!’ It was a long speech for her, and she smoothed the dress which was a little too short down over her plump thighs with a satisfied air at the end of it.
Emma Jones decided that it was time to cut their losses and get out of this overheated, hostile room. She stood up. ‘We shall be continuing our inquiries. When your chickens come home to roost, Mr Dawes, you’ll wish you’d been a little more cooperative with us this morning. If there is any further attempt to intimidate Mr Joussef, we shall know where it has come from.’ She picked up her hat and made for the door. PC Standing followed her dolefully, trying unsuccessfully to conceal the fact that this was a retreat.
Jack Dawes rose without haste, then bathed all three of the people in the room with his victory smile. ‘Chickens, eh, love? Well, there’s only two people here who are chicken, if you ask me. And that’s the two who came here making false accusations. Goodbye to you, officers of the law. Have a nice day!’
Thirty-five miles away in the ancient English wool-town of Burford, Chief Superintendent John Lambert was approaching a very different house from the one occupied by Mrs Dawes and her son.
The thatched cottage had dormer windows cut into its roof and a path to its oak front door which ran between the perennial plantings of a traditional cottage garden. The front of the house was still in shade, and the heavy autumn dew clung becomingly to the foliage. So healthy was the neatly tended growth that scarcely an inch of soil could be seen. The last of the Michaelmas daisies were still in luxuriant blue and purple bloom and there was a scent of roses, though it was only as Lambert approached the door that he caught sight of the crimson blooms of the climber beneath the low eaves of the house.
There was no sign of life in this pleasant place, yet the old door swung silently open before he could knock. The slim, dark-haired woman on the threshold said, ‘Dad! You’re the last person I expected to see. There was no need. There’s nothing you can do.’
