by J M Gregson
His equanimity was hardly affected by the fact that his colleagues regarded Chief Superintendent Thomas Bulstrode Tucker as a complete tosser. That was one of the more polite phrases for him which circulated on the busy floors beneath the chief’s splendidly elevated office.
On Monday afternoon, Tucker gazed out over the softly sunlit town and enjoyed the view for a few moments. From this height, you could appreciate the changing seasons. There were definite signs of spring today. The days were lengthening and the birds were nesting around his suburban home. Not too many springs now before he could contemplate a well-earned retirement and a splendid pension.
Just avoid banana skins and any serious cock-ups for another year or two, Thomas, and you’ll be able to cement your position as a well-respected figure in the Lodge. Freemasonry had served him well; in retirement, he could see himself consolidating, perhaps even embellishing, what he saw as his burgeoning reputation within the brotherhood.
Tucker sighed deeply after his contemplation of the extensive but unremarkable sprawl of the old cotton town. Then he turned reluctantly away from the wide window of his private visions and back to the mundane business of self-preservation. He buzzed the number on the internal phone and said authoritatively into the mouthpiece, ‘Come up here for a few minutes, please, Percy.’
Chief Inspector Denis Charles Scott Peach had been given the forenames of the most charismatic cricketer of his father’s young days, Denis Compton, but was now universally known as ‘Percy’ in a police service which loved the simple pleasures of alliteration. This was the man who succeeded in carrying the considerable burden of Thomas Bulstrode Tucker upon his broad shoulders. A man who worked at the coal-face of crime and relished it. A man who produced the clear-up figures for crime upon which Tucker sailed, but which he could never have produced for himself.
DCI Peach knew what happened in Brunton CID better than any other man. He was also more than any other officer the man responsible for the unit’s successes and considerable reputation. Tucker might be a bumbling fool at everything except public relations. But he was not such a fool that he did not know the worth of Peach, did not recognize how vital the man was to his own reputation and progress.
Tucker detested Peach, detested the liberties the man took and the insolence he suspected but could not pin down. But he knew also how much he needed his DCI.
For his part, Peach regarded the man he had christened Tommy Bloody Tucker with cordial contempt for most of the time, and with a contempt which was not at all cordial when Tucker perpetrated his worst excesses. Cloaking his disdain under the thinnest veil of subservience, he taunted his superior officer relentlessly, knowing that the older man needed him more than he needed any other person to preserve the fiction of his efficiency.
Percy Peach now appeared in answer to Tucker’s summons, a squat, powerful figure, with gleaming black toecaps beneath an immaculate grey suit. He was only thirty-eight, but he looked at first sight a little older because of his shining bald head, the whiteness of which was emphasized by the jet-black fringe of hair around it and the equally black moustache and eyes in the round, alert face.
‘You didn’t give me your normal Monday briefing on the events of the weekend,’ said Tucker. Start as you mean to go on, he told himself. Assert yourself to this presumptuous upstart.
‘Written report was on your desk at nine forty this morning, sir,’ said Peach stiffly. ‘I hope someone hasn’t purloined it whilst you’ve been out and about on the tasks of your arduous day, sir. People are light-fingered everywhere now, sir. Even in police stations, it appears.’ He was standing erect in the military ‘Attention’ position, his eyes rigidly fixed not upon Tucker’s face but on the wall three inches above the chief’s head, a pose he adopted for no other reason than that he knew that this stance of exaggerated deference irritated and disconcerted his chief.
Tucker said, ‘I always prefer the informality of a verbal exchange when it’s possible, you know.’ He waved in exasperation towards the chair in front of his wide and uncluttered desk. ‘Do sit down, Percy. We have things to discuss.’
Peach noted the use of his first name with dismay. Attempts at intimacy from Tucker were always a danger sign. He positioned the chair very carefully, as if its exact proximity to the figure in charge of Brunton CID was a matter of supreme importance in some unwritten but important ritual. Then he sat upon it as if it might at any moment explode beneath him.
‘Yes, sir. Nothing remarkable this weekend. Bit of violence in the town centre on Saturday night. Routine stuff, I’m afraid to say.’
‘We mustn’t just accept these things, you know.’ Tucker was suddenly at his most sententious. ‘My policy is to charge these ruffians, if at all possible.’
‘Yes, sir. Zero tolerance, sir. Like Mayor Giuliani, sir.’
‘Pardon?’ Tucker looked like a low-IQ rabbit stricken with incomprehension. His eyes contrived to be at once devoid of understanding and full of suspicion, a combination which his DCI found wholly intriguing.
‘Late Mayor of New York, sir. Zero tolerance was one of his watchwords. The policy worked well there, apparently. Might work well in Brunton, if the individual-rights lobby would think of the victims instead of the criminals, for once in a while.’
‘Ah!’ For a moment, these two very different men found their enmity removed by the thought of a common foe. Tucker nodded his agreement and added a salvo against a second police bête noire. ‘And even when we make out a good case against some young thug, the bloody Crown Prosecution Service won’t take it on.’
‘Indeed, sir. The CPS want a cast-iron case before they’ll consider taking things to court.’ Peach brightened a little. ‘Which is what I’m trying to give them, with one of the toughs from the weekend.’
‘That’s the style, Percy. Give ’em hell, eh! Well, at least you know your Head of CID is right behind you.’ Tucker jutted his chin aggressively and set his head in his ‘leading the troops’ position.
‘Good to know that, sir. Wouldn’t like to come downstairs and question Mr Atwal yourself, would you?’ Percy Peach raised his eyebrows in optimistic encouragement, although he already knew the answer to his question.
Tucker’s scalp prickled as Peach had known it would at the mention of the name. ‘Atwal? Are you telling me that you are questioning a member of the immigrant community?’
Peach wrinkled his brow as if asked to deal with an extremely complex question. ‘Difficult to pronounce on that, sir. No doubt the man he was hitting with the baseball bat regarded him as an immigrant, but Mr Atwal assures me that he was born here and has lived in this area for every one of his twenty-four years.’
‘There are racial overtones to this, Peach.’
And you’re wetting yourself again, thought Percy. He was glad to hear his forename removed from Tommy Bloody Tucker’s address and enmity re-entering the chief’s tones; you knew where you were when there was a little formality in the exchanges. ‘You’re on to it as usual, sir. Nothing slips past you, as I constantly emphasize to the lads and lasses downstairs. I was saying as much to the girl who had her head split open in making this arrest, only this morning.’
Tucker’s concern was as usual not for his officer’s welfare but for the PR aspect of the incident. ‘You need to go easy here, Peach. We operate in a very difficult racial climate, in this area.’
Correction: we operate and you piss about up here, thought Percy. He sat very erect and addressed himself to a point on the wall behind the Chief Superintendent’s head. ‘I appreciate that, sir. And I am glad that you are counselling that we operate zero tolerance whenever there are incidents of racial violence like this. It is the quickest way of stamping them out, in my opinion. And the officers who have to deal with this escalating problem will be gratified to know that they have your support. They will be very happy to take a hard line: we have been waiting for a lead on this.’
He nodded his approval and half-rose to his feet, as if anxious to rush away a
nd announce this brave new world to the men and women straining at the leash on the floors below them.
Tucker was looking pleasingly pale. He was as usual not quite clear how he had arrived at a stance which was the very opposite of his inclination. ‘You mustn’t be headstrong, Peach. I have an overview of this situation which you cannot be expected to have when you are more closely involved in it.’
‘Ah! Your overview, sir.’ Peach recognized a familiar phenomenon, settled sadly back on his chair and shook his head with elaborate melancholy. He looked like a man who had been hit over the head with a sock full of wet sand.
‘Indeed, Peach. My overview tells me that we have to be excessively cautious in this area. My advice – my reluctant advice, Peach – has to be that you should let this Atwal fellow go with a caution. To do otherwise might be to provoke resentment among our Asian community.’
‘And to release him without charge would certainly fuel the resentment of the National Front and the British National Party and every other right-wing lunatic. They gather extra votes every time we do not act in cases like this.’ For a moment, Peach found himself abandoning his baiting of his inadequate superior to speak with a real passion. ‘The police service needs to be seen to be even-handed, sir.’
Tucker shook his head sadly. ‘If you had to go into some of the meetings I have to attend, Peach, you wouldn’t dismiss racial tensions so lightly.’
And if you had to pick your way through the blood on the streets and see your own officers at risk, you wouldn’t be such a time-serving and contemptible disappointment to us, thought Percy. He found himself unexpectedly tight-lipped and staring for once straight into Tucker’s face as he said, ‘I’ll question Atwal and his cronies myself, sir. Then I’ll make a decision.’
Tucker looked uneasy in the face of this confrontation. But the only alternative to giving Peach his head was to get involved himself, which he was never going to do. ‘Better come back to me for a final approval, if you decide to charge him. My advice is a caution.’
Advice which was being offered without knowledge of a single detail of the case, thought Percy grimly. But he knew that he was going to have difficulty in getting the witnesses he needed to convince the CPS that they should take on an assault case. He would probably have to let the arrogant young hoodlum downstairs go with a caution anyway. The matter would end with this silly sod in front of him thinking his wiser counsel had prevailed.
To make his disapproval manifest, Peach spoke every syllable with elaborate slowness as he said, ‘Was there anything else you wanted to say to me, sir?’
Tucker stared at him for a moment, a rabbit now caught in headlights. Then his memory clanked into gear and he said querulously, ‘Yes, there was, Peach. If you hadn’t distracted me with your inanities, you would have known about it by now.’ He squirmed a little on his seat, feeling he needed a different pose for this portentous revelation. ‘We are to be part of the most important police operation in the north-west this year. A major part, in fact. The Drugs Squad have been working on this one for months, and are now ready to make their move. They believe they can seize some of the really big boys: the drug barons.’ Tucker paused to let Peach appreciate that portentous phrase. ‘And I have decided to entrust the matter to you and the team you select. But I don’t want any cock-ups. The prestige of Brunton CID is at stake.’
What you mean is that you don’t want to be around when the shit’s flying but you’ll emerge to claim the glory if all goes well, thought Percy. He had worked with Tommy Bloody Tucker for too long to feel either surprise or resentment. It was the way of the world and the privilege of rank to do such things, but Tucker took it to extremes. Success was always his and his alone; failure was never remotely to be connected with him.
Peach looked at the wall beyond his chief and said modestly, ‘You’re far too ready to let us enjoy all the excitement, sir. I don’t think you should deny yourself like this. I think you should take charge of this operation yourself. Let us have the benefit of your overview.’ He dwelt on the last word just long enough to leave irony hanging in the air over the big desk.
Tucker stared at him suspiciously. ‘It is not my policy to interfere with my staff. You know how I like to let you and the others take the glory.’ It did not sound convincing, even to him, but he put all the conviction he could muster into the words.
‘But it isn’t fair for us to monopolize the action, sir. This would be an opportunity to bring your fabled experience back on to the streets and savour the full benefits of leading from the front. A rare opportunity.’ Peach paused to give due weight to this last phrase.
‘No. I shall liaise with senior officers in the Drugs Squad and the Serious Crime Unit over this. That is my function. That is what the system requires of me.’
‘Well, there’s no getting round the system, sir, is there? A pity, though: I can guess just how much you’d like to be sharing the dangers with us.’
Tucker looked at him sharply, but his DCI’s face was as inscrutable as a warrior’s mask. ‘You’ll have the Armed Response Unit to back you up.’ He was sprinkling the capitals in each of his statements about the operation, as if by doing so he could stress its magnitude to this man who refused so steadfastly to be impressed.
Peach nodded, suddenly serious. Bullets flying about; trigger-happy young coppers on the one side and villains who were not bound by any rules on the other. People could get hurt. Despite his goading of Tommy Bloody Tucker, the last man he wanted around in such circumstances was this bumbling figurehead. ‘Let’s have the details, sir. The when and the where, to start with. I’ll need to decide carefully who to deploy on this one, by the sound of it.’
Tucker smiled a superior smile. At last this insolent subordinate was recognizing the importance of this commission. The Chief Superintendent touched the side of his nose in the gesture of secrecy which Peach found the most irritating of all. ‘I cannot tell you that at the moment, as you will appreciate, Peach. I don’t even know the details myself, as yet.’
That was but one more drop in the vast pool of Tommy Bloody Tucker’s ignorance, thought Percy Peach, as he went thoughtfully back down the stairs to rejoin the real world. But he was unusually quiet as he began to think about the personnel he would deploy on this. For all his wordplay with Tucker, this wasn’t something to be taken lightly.
Three
Jack Clark was exhausted.
You would expect to be able to relax when you reached the haven of the police station. Instead, as an undercover officer coming here from the most dangerous of all situations, he knew that he would be put through a series of tests and interrogations, most of which he did not understand and did not want to understand.
They had put him in a room on his own, a blessedly warm room. He knew it was no more than an empty office, but it felt like a palace after the basement in the squat. He stood motionless for minutes before the single window, looking out at the lights of the town, at the sky darkening to navy in the early March twilight.
He did not recognize any of the people who attended to him. But that was all right: he found he did not want to recognize them, or to exchange any words which would make them colleagues. He had striven for months now to attune himself to the dangerous world of the squat and the strange companions of that house, some of them pathetic, some of them menacing. He had worked hard to make this place of friendly, unthreatening faces into an alien one; he could not afford to switch back to it now.
They took his order and brought him food from the police canteen. Having a choice of food was more than he could cope with: he opted for the steak pie and chips which was the first thing on offer, and scarcely heard the words of the rest. The female officer who brought the tray to him was scathing about the quality of the canteen cuisine, but he fell upon the food as soon as she was out of the room as if it had earned the highest Michelin rating.
It was the first really hot food he had consumed in weeks, and the syrup sponge and custard which follo
wed formed a warm lining in his stomach for the cold night to which he knew he must return. He sipped the mug of hot, sweet tea as if it were a new and priceless beverage, noting with a shock how filthy and cracked his nails were, as he wrapped them around the diminishing warmth of the earthenware.
Then Jack Clark folded his arms, slid them on to the table in front of him and put his head sideways upon them, as he had not done since he was a small child in the nursery school. He was safe here, as he had not been for months: he curled up like an overfed animal to sleep off the meal.
They gave Sergeant Clark four minutes before they came into the room. He seemed sound asleep, but he was awake in an instant as the door slid open, his deeply set eyes as narrow and watchful as those of a wild creature cornered in its lair, his lean body twisting on the chair to confront them.
The psychologist was swift, expert and impersonal, testing him without a change of expression, whatever his replies. If he felt sympathy for this debilitated, hunted figure, he gave no sign of it in his face. And he wasted no time: Clark had to be back in the squat in no more than two hours, or suspicions might be aroused about where he was and what he was doing.
The National Crime Squad pursues major criminals in drugs, in arms and people trafficking, in fraud and paedophilia. The fifteen hundred officers and five hundred civilian staff are based in covert locations throughout England and Wales. It is the people who work as undercover agents in the drug industry who take the maximum risks, disappearing for months on end without being able to contact their nearest and dearest, unable to assure them of their safety or even their continued existence.
