A Little Learning

by J M Gregson

  Thirteen

  The student bar in the UEL was quite full by nine o’clock on that Wednesday. The visiting football and rugby teams from Liverpool University had been there for some time, and were making the most of the last half hour before boarding their coach for the forty-mile return journey. The songs were vulgar, the merriment was strident, the decibel level was high.

  No one took much account of the tall young man with the head of curly black hair as he sat with a book and a pint in the corner by the door. He was perhaps a little older than the average in the bar that night, but it was scarcely noticeable. A postgraduate student, perhaps, or a research assistant; the new university, anxious to build up its status as quickly as possible, had brought in a few of both these exotic species.

  People expected students to read books, and the one this fresh-faced young man immersed himself in so deeply would excite no comment in any university in the world: it was a Penguin paperback edition of Niccolo Machiavelli’s The Prince. He turned the pages at regular intervals, and only the very observant would have realized that his eyes moved sometimes above the pages of the book he held, and took in everything that was happening in that raucous, unevenly lit room.

  The merriment was at its height and the bar at its fullest when the moment came for which DC Brendan Murphy had waited.

  The man in the greasy navy anorak was perhaps three years older than him, and unshaven, with a little more stubble than was fashionable, even in a student community. He slid himself behind a rectangular table no more than ten yards from Brendan, on the other side of the entrance door. This man made no attempt to buy a drink, but sat in a pool of shadow, with his hands in his pockets and his neck shrunk within his anorak, silent and watchful as a sewer rat.

  He did not have to wait for long. Two youths came from the other end of the bar, where they had been invisible to Brendan behind the waving arms of the soccer and rugby teams. They had obviously been expecting this arrival, though they exchanged no greetings with the newcomer. There was far too much noise for Brendan to hear what was said, but he saw the man spread polythene sachets on the table ahead of him, saw the students nod and pass ten-pound notes across the table. Cannabis, he thought, parcelled in quarter- or half-ounce packets; enough for twenty or forty good spliffs. The drug was now so common in environments like this that its purveyors scarcely troubled to conceal their trafficking.

  A third student joined the table, then a fourth. There were swift enquiries, in response to which the man looked round, took in Brendan, apparently engrossed in his book, and motioned with his head to indicate that his customers should follow him outside. Brendan let them get through the door before he slipped the paperback into his pocket and followed them cautiously.

  He could not see them at first. Then, as his eyes grew more used to the darkness, he found them. They were very close to the windowless brick wall which formed the back of the bar, where empty steel kegs stood awaiting collection when the brewery van made its delivery the next morning. The man in the anorak had spread out some of his wares on top of one of the big kegs; it was so dark that he was demonstrating the genuine nature of what he offered by the light of a small torch.

  Brendan crept to within five yards of them but stayed invisible behind the corner of the building. The man in the anorak was giving the nearest he came to a sales pitch. ‘This crack coke is good: none of your adulterated rubbish. Fifty quid for three rocks. The Ecstasy is forty pounds for three big tablets. What you lads want is this: Rohypnol. It’s what we use in date-rapes. Completely undetectable. Fifty quid for a good supply. Quick as you can, lads, I can’t hang about here. I’ve bigger fish to fry tonight!’

  Brendan Murphy waited until he saw money changing hands under the pale spotlight of the torch before he made his move. When he acted, he moved swiftly, arriving like a black angel of vengeance out of the darkness. He didn’t make any attempt to lay hands on the students, knowing that there were others to deal with them. He had the anorak’s hand up his back between his shoulder blades before he could attempt resistance, heard the man’s oath and yelp of agony even as he hissed the words of doom into his ear: ‘I arrest you on suspicion of dealing in Class A drugs. You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say will be recorded and may be given in evidence.’

  Quite a mouthful to deliver under stress, but he was used to that. Two of the lads had run straight into the arms of the three uniformed men around the corner. Brendan held the arm of his captive until he was able to push him roughly into the back of the van with the youths who had bought from him. Anorak said nothing on the way to the station, beyond the brief advice to his fellow prisoners that they should ‘say nothing to these bastards’.

  It was, thought DC Murphy, a highly satisfactory evening of overtime.

  *

  At ten forty-five on that Wednesday evening, at the very moment when Brendan Murphy’s prize was being charged and delivered to his cell, Detective Inspector Percy Peach had other problems.

  He wasn’t sure he was going to be able to solve them, but the problems themselves were wholly more pleasurable than those posed to Brendan by a greasy anorak with halitosis. For Percy was studying Lucy’s winceyette nightie again. And it seemed shorter than even his inflamed memory had pictured it.

  He was on his own ground tonight. His 1950s semi was older and more spacious than Lucy Blake’s trim little modern flat, but nothing like as neat and tidy. He had done his best to make it look spruce tonight, once he knew he was on a promise, but the house still carried that air of a place which was scarcely lived in and resented it.

  Still, Lucy was used to that by now. She had put away his breakfast dishes from the drainer and approved his purchase of the instant coffee she had suggested during her last visit. They had watched the ten o’clock television news, and found that even in the local section there was no mention of the murder of the Director of the University of East Lancashire. Even a sensational murder like this had held its place in the news for no more than two evenings. The two of them were rather pleased about this: CID work was not easy when conducted in the blaze of publicity which stemmed from media attention.

  And now they were in the bedroom, and Lucy was voicing her first criticism of his residence. ‘It’s cold in here!’ she said. She ran her hands along the top of Percy’s ancient, lukewarm central-heating radiator, then rubbed them vigorously together and flapped her bare arms violently across her chest.

  The movement, in that celebrated nightie, excited Percy, and he gave a low moan, part pure pleasure, part agonized anticipation. He did a good moan, full of pent-up emotion on its sustained, plangent note. ‘It won’t be cold when you get into here!’ he promised fervently.

  He was lying in his double bed, his head exactly level with the lower fringe of the nightie, his concentration on the artistic appreciation of the scene absolute. He allowed himself a quieter, less agonized moan.

  ‘You make me self-conscious! Every bit of me’s cold, while you just lie there whining!’ she complained. She turned her back on him, bent automatically to take off her slippers, then hastily changed her position, lest she should reveal enough to cause a cardiac arrest in her excited lover. Percy began to croon his own erotic version of ‘Blue Moon’.

  ‘I think I’ll put on my bed-socks and get myself a hot water bottle,’ said Lucy vindictively.

  ‘Bloody ‘ell, Norah!’ said Percy. It was a comment he offered for all occasions, sometimes in mock horror, sometimes in awed appreciation. He followed this one with another moan, to show that it was appreciation. ‘That were an ejaculation, lass, that about Norah,’ he said. ‘Does tha like it when I talk dirty?’

  Lucy’s shiver developed into a giggle. She didn’t mind whether he talked dirty or not, but she liked it when he thee’d and thou’d her. She couldn’t say why; perhaps it was something connected with being a Lancashire lass who had grown up
in the country, where the old accent and even bits of the old dialect were still strong.

  DS Blake laid her clean pants and bra for the morning carefully on top of the aged radiator, in the faint hope that they might gather some warmth to receive her then. She took a deep breath, steeling herself for action. Then she whipped the nightie up and her pants down, depositing them in one continuous movement in the darkest corner of the room. This disrobing of the nymph provoked DI Denis Charles Scott Peach into an uninhibited yell of pure pleasure.

  ‘You haven’t warmed my half !’ complained Lucy, as her teeth chattered and she tried to ward off three indecent assaults at once.

  ‘Then come into mine!’ said Percy. He managed to get both arms round her shapely shoulders and heaved her expertly on top of him.

  ‘Ooh!’ said Lucy. It was only proper to show a decent degree of surprise.

  ‘Aaaaaargh!’ said Percy. Curious how your moans became so much lower, when you had a weight on top of you, even such a delicious weight as this. Still, you had to show your appreciation.

  ‘This nightie’s too short!’ said Lucy modestly into the well-formed ear where her lips had landed.

  ‘Just the right length!’ Percy differed, with a low, animal growl which said far more than words. He didn’t know where the nightie had gone at the moment, and he didn’t care. His hands fell on what it should have been covering. There seemed an awful lot of precious flesh here, for a small piece of winceyette like that to cover. It was only right that he should offer a helping hand. Or hands.

  Decidedly expert hands, Lucy found. She allowed herself a low moan of her own: womanly, if not exactly ladylike.

  Fifteen minutes which seemed like one passed before Percy sank back into his pillow, adjusted his breathing to the slowing palpitations of the form above him, and muttered through the chestnut hair a heartfelt, ‘Eeh, lass, that were champion!’

  Lucy smiled in the darkness, shifted her head to give a gentle kiss to the man below her, touching his chin lightly with soft lips, running the tip of her tongue lightly across his neck. ‘Tha weren’t too bad thiself, Percy. Not for an old ‘un, like.’ She slipped her body from above his and pulled down her nightie. ‘Fanny pelmet you called this, and fanny pelmet is just about all it is!’ she said. Everything she had hoped it would be when she bought it, she thought happily.

  They lay with their arms around each other, pleasurably warm and content, drifting towards sleep and yet with part of them anxious to stay awake, to prolong the intimacy of the post-coital moment. She was breathing regularly, and he thought she must be asleep when he heard her mutter drowsily, ‘I hope we didn’t disturb the neighbours!’

  ‘Might ‘ave,’ he murmured, with a touch of pride. ‘They’re not used to noises like that. They think I’m a sad divorcee who lives in a state of quasi-monastic seclusion. You’d best show yourself at the window in that nightie in the morning. I wouldn’t like them to think I was making noises like that playing solo.’

  She giggled. She liked the idea that there hadn’t been others here before her. She had no right to expect it, but it gave her satisfaction, nonetheless. It was her last thought before she fell into a deep and dreamless sleep.

  One of the reasons Percy Peach’s bedroom was so cold was that it faced due east. Even on the 21st of November, the grey light of dawn crept under the ill-fitting cotton curtains before seven o’clock. Lucy Blake, rolling on her back and stretching sensuously, thought at first that it was the light which had wakened her. Then she heard the rattle of crockery and found a cup of tea on the small bedside cupboard beside her.

  She had been given a cup and saucer, but Percy clutched his favourite mug as he moved round to his side of the bed. He was naked. ‘Winceyette doesn’t do the same things for me as it does for you,’ he explained. He slid between the sheets and gave a theatrical shiver. ‘God, but that lino’s cold on the kitchen floor, lass.’ He contrived somehow to raise a cold foot and place it precisely between her warm buttocks.

  She screamed. That would give those neighbours something to think about. ‘I’m going to wear flannel pyjamas when I come here next!’ she said. ‘With a padlock and chain, I should think!’

  He removed his foot, sipped his tea, and said, ‘That should give the locksmith a few moments of pure pleasure. If I get Horny Harry from Oswaldtwistle, he might pay me the call-out fee.’

  Lucy had no idea whether Horny Harry existed. He might, because Percy knew some pretty dodgy characters, having worked for so long in the area. She allowed him to warm his hands in more conventional ways. Then she finished her tea and gave the neighbours more grounds for noise speculation.

  They had time only for the briefest of breakfasts. They met the man from next door outside, getting into his car as Percy unlocked his. They exchanged good mornings and the man, a friendly looking chap of around fifty, cast an appreciative glance over the girl whom that lonely inspector next door had managed to secure for himself.

  He had found Percy a pleasant enough chap, in their limited dealings. He was quite glad for him. And not a little envious.

  Fourteen

  The anorak’s name turned out to be Kevin Allcock. After a night in Brunton nick and a police station breakfast, he was at a low ebb. Even from the most charitable viewpoint, his stubble was now definitely long enough to be scruffy rather than fashionable. Moreover, he had been forced to empty his pockets at the desk before he was charged with the possession and supply of drugs. The very substance which might have helped him to keep up his spirits through a long night had been left behind with the station sergeant.

  It was a situation tailor-made for Percy Peach.

  The Detective Inspector arrived in the interview room like a bouncing ball. He looked his adversary up and down, approved of the state he was in, and said, ‘You remember DC Murphy from last night. I think we’ll have the recorder on; I often like to play things back later, when a prisoner and I have had a few laughs together.’ He put a cassette in the machine and announced that the interview with Kevin Charles Allcock was beginning at eight forty-two, with DI Peach and DC Murphy present.

  Then he pretended to study the notes he had already memorized before he came into the room, while the sallow face opposite him looked unwillingly up from the small square table into the features of his latest tormentor, and Allcock’s narrow hips shifted uneasily on the hard chair. Peach shook his head sadly and tut-tutted twice before he allowed his round face to relax into a satisfied smile. ‘Lot of trouble you’re in, Mr Allcock.’

  ‘Wasn’t doing anything.’

  Disappointment flooded back into the moonlike face around the black moustache. ‘Aw, come on, Kevin, you can do better than that. Make a game of it! We’ll be handing you over to the Drugs Squad team, presently, but the least you can do is give us a good game first.’

  ‘Fuck off, Peach. I wasn’t doing anything.’

  ‘Just going about your lawful business when this great rough copper grabbed your collar and dragged you in, were you?’

  ‘That’s about it, yes.’

  ‘Well, well, well! I thought Kevin was a good name for a man never seen without an anorak. I’m beginning to think Allcock is an even more appropriate handle for a man attempting to sell us tales like this.’

  ‘Fuck off, Peach!’ But now there was fear in the grey, slightly bloodshot eyes. Allcock had expected the head-on attack. Being flicked about like a captive mouse was much more unnerving. He was already sorry that he’d refused a brief.

  Whereas Percy Peach was pleased about that refusal. Much easier to conduct a proper dialogue with a known villain when there wasn’t some poncy young lawyer reminding him of his rights all the time. He said with a sudden harshness. ‘Caught in possession of Class A and B drugs with a street value estimated at eight thousand pounds. Caught selling three different Class A drugs to students at the University of East Lancashire.’

  ‘I wasn’t pushing. I admit possession. The drugs were for my own use. Private and recreational
.’

  Peach leaned back and laughed out loud. ‘That’s all cock, Allcock!’ He beamed a simple delight in his wordplay. ‘And you know it. You were caught red-handed and banged to rights. Wasn’t he, DC Murphy?’

  ‘Certainly was, sir. Never seen anything so blatant. Almost gave himself up, he did, poor sod.’ Brendan Murphy was happy to make his contribution. He sat just behind Peach’s left shoulder, and in his very different young, fresh face, his smile was an unnerving replica of his leader’s.

  Kevin Allcock was duly unnerved. His brain wouldn’t work properly, just when he most needed it. He fell back on the villain’s last resort. ‘You just prove that! I wasn’t pushing drugs at all. Most of that eight thousand quid’s worth was planted on me by this bugger!’

  The two grins grew wider, instead of disappearing as he had hoped. Peach said with a weary disdain, ‘Tell him, DC Murphy.’

  ‘Yes, sir. We’ve got signed statements from the lads we brought in with you, Allcock. They handed over money to you in return for class A drugs. Ecstasy, rock cocaine and Rohypnol. After you’d given them a sales pitch for Rohypnol as the ideal tool for date-rape.’

  Allcock’s sallow face became older and greyer beneath the stubble of beard. His last hope had just died. He said automatically, hopelessly, ‘You’ll have to prove it.’

  Peach was almost sorry for him. ‘We just did, sunshine. When you get the brief you so unwisely refused, he’ll tell you to plead guilty. You’ll go down for this. For eight or ten years, I should think, with your record.’

  Allcock had been done for supplying drugs before. He’d known they would throw this at him, but it had still come as a surprise to find his record pitched in like this, just after the body blow that those bloody students had grassed him up. He said dully, ‘They can’t do that. I’m just a small man, earning…’ His shoulders dropped hopelessly and his slight figure seemed to shrink even further.

  ‘Earning an honest living, Kevin? I’m glad you stopped in time. That really would have been all cock. You’ve strained our patience quite enough. I think we’ll let you stew in a cell for a while and wait for the Drugs Squad. Tell them everything you know about the people who were providing you with your supplies.’