November Uniform or the Wagers of Sin

by M. C. Newberry

  “So what does this fella … the one you recognised with Tighe … what does he do over at your caravan park?”

  “Greenfingered odd-job man.”

  Swift chuckled. “There has to be a joke in there somewhere.”

  “Spare me. But you can tell me this. Was it you who went to see our local gravedigger after Miller’s demise?”

  “Carter? Nasty sod. Like father like son if you go along with bad blood being handed on down the line.”

  “You didn’t, by any chance, notice whether he displayed a particular fondness for flowers?”

  Swift’s mouth dropped open and seemed to flap as he shook his head.

  “Don’t worry, I’m not two blooms short of a bunch. Forget it.”

  “C’mon, big boy, this girl needs her beauty sleep.” Rachel was dragging Swift away towards their car on the far side of the road. She turned back to Moe as they went. “Will we see you before you head back to sin city?”

  “Que sera sera.” The enigmatic words of the old Doris Day song came easily to Moe.

  “Whatever will be, will be …” Rachel crooned back.

  “After you, Doris.” Swift was keying his own front passenger door for her as he called back to Moe.

  “See you as arranged at the “cash ’n’ carry” – sorry – Legge’s betting shop. If I’m late, it’ll be that guy from London cutting things fine.” Moe winced theatrically at the CID man’s description of the visiting pathologist’s handiwork on Miller. Downes was patting Marie gently on her shoulder as Moe got in.

  She looked at Moe. “He was talking about that poor man, wasn’t he?”

  Moe nodded. Her eyes were moist as she looked away. Whether it was from the thought of Miller’s brutal death or for his own forseeable departure, Moe wasn’t sure.

  They drove back to Downes’ home in silence. The streets, lit by garish orange lamps, were drizzle-damp and deserted. To Moe this had been another difficult adjustment after London; the way everything virtually shut down after ten at night. But as he caught a glimpse of Marie in the corner of his mirror, he knew he was going to miss even that irritation more than he had dreamt possible.

  “It’s amazing to think that we’ve lived so near to each other without knowing about it.” Marie covered Downes’ hand as he bent down to her open window and gripped the top of the glass to ease the effort.

  “Are you sure you wouldn’t like a nightcap with Arthur and me?”

  Her offer was gracefully but firmly declined.

  “But don’t be too surprised if I pay a neighbourly visit in the not too distant future. For a cup of sugar.” Downes was grinning impishly.

  “Do that!”

  The old man spoke past her to Moe. “Thanks for everything, Arthur. I’ve never had so much money in one day!”

  “Don’t spend it all at once.”

  “I was thinking about buying a new sofa. What d’you think?” Downes twinkled back.

  “I think it would be a mission of mercy on behalf of your guests.” Downes’ roar of laughter saw them on their way.

  “Next time you can take me,” Marie said, swivelling around in her seat from waving to face the front. “I’ve never been to the races.”

  “You should have been there this afternoon. I saw someone you know. The charmer who wanted to give you back his parking ticket.”

  “Was he driving? “ Marie enquired sweetly.

  “Always on the job, eh, Mee?”

  “It takes one to know one, Moe.”

  …………………………

  A clock chimed somewhere and Marie stirred against him.

  “I have to go,” Moe whispered, releasing her body.

  “Eeny, MEANY, Miny Moe, always says he has to go.” Marie puckered.

  “There’s always tomorrow, “ Moe replied, wondering how hollow that sounded to her. But she passed and rolled up against him, running her fingers through his tousled hair. She stared at him like she was seeing him for the very first time.

  “Have you ever been married?” That was unexpected.

  “No.”

  “Me neither. I’ve often wondered what it would be like to wake up every morning next to the same man.”

  “Can’t say I have.”

  “Be serious, you bastard!” Marie giggled, drumming his chest. “I am. And my parents were married.”

  “So were mine. And they seemed to enjoy it.”

  “Marie, it’s a bit late in the day – sorry, early in the morning, to be talking about such weighty things. It’s not fair.”

  “All’s fair in love and war, buster. Anyway, I asked if you had ever BEEN married, that’s all. No big deal.”

  She lay back, her expression dreamy in the lamplight. Moe was worried. Women were at their most dangerous when men were at their most vulnerable. And any man was vulnerable in his situation.

  “I have to go.” Hastily, Moe got up and barged around ineffectually for his clothes while Marie watched his every move. She spoke in a far-away sort of voice.

  “A man and a woman can make a go of it if they have fun making ends meet.”

  Moe knew just what she meant and speeded up before she won that one as well. Marie’s voice was like a caress of silk across the groin.

  “It’s like sex. It can sometimes be awkward at first but things get relaxed, really comfortable if both parties like each other, don’t you think?”

  A relationship in a nutshell, Moe thought and found his tie. But gossip time in the traffic wardens’ office – he could imagine!

  “I’d like children before it’s too late.”

  Moe was positively panicking now.

  Marie’s peal of merriment told him she had caught him beautifully. “Oh, right … very funny – ha-ha!”

  “Serves you right. Come here.” Obediently, Moe did as he was told. She finished tying his tie for him. Strangely, Moe didn’t resent being caught out like that. In fact, he was experiencing a tinge of regret and that confused him. Marie tugged the knot into place and stroked the length of the tie.

  “There you are. But who’s going to be waiting for you in that lonely old caravan?” There was emphasis on “lonely and “old”, and Moe was weakening. But it was too late, Marie was in her wrap and taking his hand Then again, Moe reasoned, he had to show her that he had a will of his own. Hardening his resolve against the temptation a hand’s clasp away, he allowed himself to be led to the front door.

  Once on her doorstep, Moe turned to Marie as she leaned her head around her front door, holding the wrap around her with one hand.

  “How long had Miller been a traffic warden in Baytown?”

  Marie didn’t look too impressed. “What on earth makes you ask that now?”

  “Nothing really. Just say I’m curious.”

  “I can’t be exact.” She shivered violently and Moe felt guilty. “Four … five months perhaps. He transferred in from elsewhere.” She looked distressed. “I don’t think I want to be talking about this. Especially to you, right at this moment.”

  “Sorry, it was clumsy of me. I didn’t mean to spoil the evening.”

  “It was a lovely evening,” Marie agreed, appearing like a soft-lit siren from behind the door, her wrap opening to remind Moe of what he was leaving. He reached out to pull it shut.

  “You never know who’s out here.”

  “You are.”

  Moe actually blushed in the neon-lit nowhere and had to tear himself away before he surrendered and stumbled back to somewhere.

  She waved as he drove past, a serene almost victorious smile on her face. And it had stopped raining.

  …………………………

  Baytown pier was in need of a good lick of paint. That much was obvious to Moe, even at three-thirty in the morning.

  He walked up the ramp and stepped over the waist-high chain link barrier with its forlorn and faded ‘KEEP OUT’ sign. The first fifty yards of pier, a wooden decked promenade, were under wayward renovation.

  Moe picked his
way carefully over the tired planking, the tang of brine bringing back the memories. The familiar lines of a poem he knew returned with the rush of the tide swirling far below.

  “Children dancing in the sea

  Remind me how I used to be;

  Free from care and full of fun

  A happy boy beneath the sun …”

  He was a long way from being a boy now but there was a still a ritual left from his past. Moe headed for the iron balustrade above the sea. Reaching it, he placed both feet on the lower rail and leaned out, arms stretched sideways, so that just his feet and thighs held him there.

  Moe had often played this game as a boy, rocking to and fro until his upper body was far out over the shifting, featureless water below. It used to drive Hilda and Maurice Moe to distraction and they would compete to save him from his folly. But Moe had known exactly what he was doing, bless them. He began rocking to and fro, high above the sea.

  Marie filled his mind. She had aroused emotions in him that had unnerved him more than anything he had done to frighten his parents. Her frivolous remarks about marriage had nurtured a need that had hit him the first time he saw her. And like a seed, it had been watered by her physical attraction and wicked humour so that it was growing bigger inside him with every passing hour. Marry Marie? Why not? Filled with a sudden fierce exultation, Moe shouted into the night. “HI-YO SILVER – AND AWAY!”

  The two laid-back heads in the front of the concealed jam sandwich jerked awake. The driver yawned and scowled at the wireless operator in the adjoining seat. He took exception to being disturbed unless it was for matters of the utmost importance – like booking off-duty.

  “Do you have to shout in your dirty dreams?” he remonstrated tetchily.

  “It wasn’t me, it was you. I’m as quiet as a lamb when I sleep.”

  “And how would you know that, Doctor Freud?”

  “My wife.”

  “And how would she know? You’re hardly ever at home!”

  The two semi-recumbent guardians of Baytown’s night environs glared irritably at each other. Then, out of habit and nothing else to say at that moment, they listened intently.

  “I can’t hear anything except a rushing in my ears.” The driver banged the side of his head with the flat on one hand.

  “That’s the sea, stupid. Now let’s get some shuteye. We’ve got a hard day at court in front of us.”

  “We would have been at home in bed if you hadn’t got carried away.” With a sneer of resentment, the driver adopted his previous position. His partner in crime prevention and detection stared moodily out into the blackness of their hiding place beneath the pier.

  “In case it had escaped your attention, you’re the driver. If I got carried away, it was by you. All the way to Newlands Priory before that yob fell off his moped. I merely indicated the way he was riding it.”

  Tiring of scoring pointless points, the weary and the sneery soon dozed back into the crime-free dreamworld of plod nod.

  Many feet above their heads, an exhilarated Moe sought to balance his recent unhappy past against a far from finished future. Coming back to this old bit of his boyhood had been good thinking on his part.

  He’d had to leave her like that to find out just how much she was coming to mean to him. Like that old song:

  ‘Marie – the dawn is breaking …”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  It felt odd at first and then Moe knew why. He was alone.

  He lifted a hand clear of the bedcovers to touch his hair. It was stiff with the cold. One day some bright and considerate soul might come up with central heating in caravans. Hurry the day! Moe rubbed vigorously, trying to impart some warmth into his chilled cranium.

  A caravan at night had no more heat than a tent, but with a duvet instead of a sleeping bag. Moe wasn’t keen on sleeping bags. He still got claustrophobia thinking back to the time on a walking holiday in the Lake District when he had been so cold he had drawn his trusty old duck down bag over his head to keep what little heat there was inside with the rest of him. Come morning, panic had set in when he couldn’t locate the toggle release. With feverish fingers, he had groped this way and that through the narrow drawstring gap over his head, a nightmare vision of newspaper headlines only adding impetus to his fumblings.

  ‘POLICEMAN DIES – VICTIM OF OLD BAG!’

  The relief on releasing himself was such that he had virtually ejected from his tent, startling a passing motorist into swerving and narrowly missing a curious sheep. Ever after, Moe had settled for frozen hair.

  Taking a deep breath, he hopped out of bed and trotted on icy lino into the open plan living area to ignite the gas fire. Barely breaking his nifty jog, Moe headed for the shower and ran the hot tap. Soon, steam was pouring past the shower curtain. Practice had brought his wake-up procedures to perfect. By the time he had showered and shaved, the interior of the caravan would be civilised enough to prepare and eat breakfast.

  Moe was humming happily to himself when smoke from the toaster took his attention away from tapping the top of his boiled egg. The radio dj’s voice burbled jovially in the background, talking the type of nonsense that acts as tissue for tired brains in the morning.

  A sudden vision of Marie filled the frame of his mental projector – in 3-D and glorious colour. There was no sound, just a great picture. He started scraping the toast free of carbon and brought her image into sharp focus.

  She’d be getting up … perhaps showering herself … shaving those lovely limbs. No, it was too much! Moe switched off his projector and scratched away at the toast with renewed zeal.

  The radio pundit had given way to the weather forecast and Moe tuned in out of habit. Even in the big city he was fascinated by the vagaries of the elements. After all, they affected everyone – and what would the British do if they didn’t have the weather to talk about. The only difference was that in London its effects were moderated by countless buildings and the heat generated by millions of occupants. But on many a night in bed before an early shift, Moe had lain and listened to the lash of the wind and rain against his window, glad that he wasn’t out there but less than thrilled by the knowledge that he soon would be.

  The shipping forecast followed and sailed swiftly to its conclusion.

  “Winds force five, gusting force six, expected to increase to gale force eight in places … backing north to north east later.”

  It sounded like things were going to get lively for those at sea. Moe didn’t envy them. Bloody hell, it was bad enough in the caravan.

  …………………………

  The gust of wind snatched at his coat as Moe stepped out of the caravan on to the top step, turning momentarily to lock the door. The wind was pungent with sea salt and wet grass. High above the knoll, a seagull hung on the wind. Moe watched, inanely glad he wasn’t a seagull.

  Three steps down found Moe squelching through sodden grass. Deep scuff marks around the rear of his caravan told him that the badger was still about – unpersuaded as yet by the attractions of hibernation. Moe marvelled. He hadn’t heard a thing.

  “Morning.” Moe breezed into the reception office, pursued by a windborne cloud of wet leaves.

  Benny Fitts and Patsy Bottoms were huddled together, apparently trying to persuade a computer to do their bidding; with a singular lack of success judging by their readiness to abandon it on Moe’s arrival.

  “Morning,” they sang in perfect harmony. Just like husband and wife, Moe thought inwardly, but canny enough not to say so outwardly.

  “Having problems?”

  “Sodding thing! Excuse my French,” Benny glowered back at the one-eyed tormentor. Moe had the distinct impression that Benny would have happily kicked it if he could have lifted his leg that far and that high. Patsy smothered a smile in Moe’s direction as Benny threatened instead to throw an ashtray at the apparatus.

  “Is it software into hardware – or the other way round? I don’t even remember that.”

  “Young m
en remember, old men forget.” Patsy observed, this time not bothering to hide her smile at Moe.

  “No handbook?” Moe enquired helpfully.

  Benny banged open a desk draw, just like Hickox had done that day.

  “Here! If you can understand it, you’re a better man than I am, Gunga Din.” Benny lobbed a pristine paperback at Moe who caught it just before it hit the floor. Its weight told Moe he wasn’t even going to try. Benny glowered as Moe flicked through the tightly crammed pages.

  “You need a degree in advanced electronics and badly-translated Japanese to understand that little lot,” Benny moaned while Patsy had the expression assumed by women when they think they know best.

  “Didn’t I tell you, but would you listen?” She arrowed her hurtful derision straight at Benny’s heart and it hit home. He whined like a little boy.

  “Patsy, please don’t go on, there’s a good girl.”

  Moe moved to change the subject. “I hope you’ve got everything battened down on the site. It’s going to be pretty hairy later.”

  “Where do you get that?”

  “The radio – a few minutes ago. Forecasting heap big winds. Who’d want to be a sailor?” Moe made realistic retching motions. Benny looked queasy and Patsy disappeared in the directions of the staff toilet. They watched her go.

  “Not herself today,” Benny said by way of explanation. Then he stiffened into managerial resolve. “I’ll get young Hands right on it.”

  “Talk of the devil and he appears,” Moe pointed out of the window at Randy Hands who was passing as he spoke. Moe opened the office door and called out to him.

  “Your boss wants you.” He nearly said, “This boss” but stopped in time as Randy changed direction into the office. Benny put him in the picture and told him to check that everything was as secure as he could make it. He didn’t want any claims for compensation from irate owners. Randy was attention personified. As he went out, Patsy re-appeared, re-arranging her clothing. Randy saw her and called back cheekily, irrepressible as ever.