Backhand Smash

by J M Gregson

  ‘I’ll bet you did.’ She looked over the empty plates into the large black face, which at this moment looked uncharacte‌ristically uncertain. ‘We could have a game tomorrow night, if you like. Just a knockabout to give you a little practice and a little confidence before you meet La Crawshaw on Wednesday.’ Elaine felt almost like a tart as she made the offer. She was used to fending off advances, not making them herself. But she knew Northcott would have been far too diffident to ask. Now she’d opened the way for a rejection and a snub.

  Instead, he said, ‘I’d like that. Just don’t expect me to be much good.’

  ‘I’ll expect you to be erratic. Will that do? Brilliant in flashes, perhaps.’

  ‘I’ll try hard to be brilliant in flashes, Elaine.’ He’d used her name again. It had come almost naturally this time.

  Birch Fields was indeed an exclusive tennis club, as PC Brockman had said. But ‘exclusive’ does not mean morally impeccable. Dictionary definitions of the word include words like ‘moneyed’ and ‘snobbish’. You can be either or both of these without being of good character. A few of the club’s three hundred members sailed very near the law. And one or two of them went well beyond it.

  One of these was Jason Fitton. His father had made his money from scrap metal, surprising even himself with the profits he made from what other people had discarded. Derek Fitton had worked hard, very hard, especially in his early days. But his work had paid off: in the 1950s and 1960s, few people had realized the value of scrap. And the last great boom in the manufacturing industry had raised the value of what the techniques of the time were learning to recycle expertly for new uses.

  Young Jason had been sent to one of the best public schools in the country, where he had been educated in all sorts of things. For a start, he had learned to speak very differently from his rough-hewn father. He had learned to play rugby and tennis to a reasonable standard, he had developed a dress sense which his father’s money enabled him to indulge, and he had learned how to manipulate people. Birch Fields had seemed his natural environment when he returned to Brunton in the 1990s prepared to make his mark on the new century. The tennis club had been happy to welcome him. His skills carried him along as a young man. His money and his influence in the town carried him much further as the years passed and the trends of the new century became apparent.

  It would not be fair to ascribe all of his characteristics to his public school. His Eton reports had said consistently that he associated with the wrong company, though there was no note of why such company was tolerated in this most august and reputable of private educational institutions. Jason was now a womanizer: determined, charming and wholly unscrupulous. In 2005, there had even been a move by devastated women and disaffected husbands to exclude Jason from the tennis club. But he paid for all-weather surfacing of two of the courts, had himself elected to the committee and made himself virtually undismissable. Ten years later, most of the members were unaware of or had forgotten his transgressions.

  Jason Fitton’s business ethics were very different from his father’s. A new generation needed new ways, Jason claimed, and he was the man to introduce them. Even to invent them, when he thought that was necessary. He took over his father’s business, gave even more powers to its managing director and instructed him to cut whatever corners were necessary to keep the scrap metal profits flowing. But as the new century advanced, the company became increasingly a respectable front for other and darker enterprises. Jason wanted faster and bigger bucks than those achieved by his father’s honest toil.

  He spotted quickly that drink, sex and gambling would be the social curses of the new century. That meant that they would also be cash cows for anyone willing to meet demand and develop wider facilities. Fitton was the man behind new casinos in Brunton and other Lancashire towns. He controlled an increasing number of brothels in north and east Lancashire; it was a foolish tart who elected to go it alone and operate without one of Fitton’s pimps. If new prostitutes were wise, they saw sense quickly and paid their dues to their controllers; if they were foolish or stubborn, they soon had damage to their faces that ensured that they would need to follow some other and less lucrative trade. Broken noses, stitched foreheads and permanently scarred cheeks did not bring in the punters, as Fitton’s enforcers were always eager to point out.

  Jason had been keeping a low profile for three months now. He had narrowly avoided arrest on charges related to the procurement and grooming of underage girls. He had been implicated in the scandals in Rochdale and Rotherham, but the lawyers of the Crown Prosecution Service had ruled that there was insufficient evidence to mount a successful prosecution against him. This was much to the disgust of the undercover police who had worked long and hard to trap him. Fitton dismissed with contempt any suggestions that he might have been involved, but he was wise enough to know that he must watch his step carefully for a while.

  Jason Fitton played tennis at five o’clock on this late-July day, clothed in the finest shirt and shorts that money could buy, behaving impeccably, sportingly calling any tight line decisions against himself. He was still good enough to win against an opponent ten years younger than himself. He bought drinks in the club bar which had just had its licence renewed after his intervention and then left amidst noisy bonhomie, having explained to those enjoying his hospitality that business called.

  Business meant a visit to his office in the private section at the back of the town’s casino, where three heavily built men were awaiting his instructions. They knew their place in this world created for them by Jason Fitton. They spoke when they were spoken to and awaited their master’s bidding. They behaved like obedient, oversized, highly dangerous children.

  Fitton sat down at his desk and glanced at the trio for a moment before gesturing to the chairs in front of it. Then he addressed himself very deliberately to the tallest of the three. ‘Have the pigs been bothering you, Abe?’

  Abe Lockhart noted the use of his first name. It was a badge of status in front of the other two, whom Fitton had so conspicuously ignored. He took his time, wishing to emphasize that status. The pecking order is surprisingly important to men who live by physical violence; brutality makes the codes more simple but more crucial. ‘The fuzz have been watching us, Mr Fitton, hoping to pick things up. We’ve given them nothing to bite on, as per your instructions.’

  Fitton nodded. ‘They’ll get bored. And if they don’t get results, they’ll switch resources. They have to: they don’t have infinite numbers and they’ve got other problems. If we give them nothing for a couple of months, they’ll be off to deal with other things. They have to produce results to wave at the public. They survive on that.’

  ‘You know best, boss.’ The men who paid you always liked to be told that, however big they grew. It was one of the few things Abe Lockhart had learned in the rough trade he practised. There wasn’t much call for PR when you dealt in cut flesh and broken bones. ‘What should we do about Forshaw and these betting shops?’

  ‘Is he still saying that he won’t sell to us?’

  ‘Not at the price you named to him. He says Ladbrokes have offered him more.’

  They probably had, but he hadn’t yet sold to them. Fear was still a great tool when you were dealing with small-time operators like Dave Forshaw. He owned three betting shops in Brunton and its satellite towns. They weren’t especially profitable – online betting was now soaking up much of the market – but their very existence was an affront to Fitton. He wanted a monopoly of the direct betting outlets in the area and he wanted other people to see that he had it. Jason looked at the expectant, recently idle faces opposite him. ‘It’s time to make a move. Whilst the pigs are busy watching our pimps and the Pakis we’ve been supplying with girls, they won’t have any eyes on Forshaw.’

  Lockhart nodded, his face twisting into an anticipatory leer, like that of a glutton thinking of steak. ‘We can take him out, boss. How much damage do we do to him?’

  The man next to him
wrung his hands together and then clasped his fists and pretended to spit upon them. Fitton was filled with a sudden revulsion for these men he employed, as Macbeth had been for the men he hired to kill Banquo. A public school education was not always an advantage when you made your living as he did. ‘Leave Forshaw for the moment,’ he said. ‘Take out one of his managers. The one in Darwen. If he doesn’t see the light and take our offer after that, we’ll give him the battering he’s asking for.’ Never go for the big man unless you had to; go for the weakest point in his armoury. Forshaw was small beer compared with Fitton. But he had certain friends in the town. It was better that he capitulated without the pressure being made too obvious.

  ‘How far do you want us to go, boss?’ Lockhart spoke like a skilled artisan anxious to exhibit his craft. The men beside him leaned forward eagerly.

  ‘Not too far. Don’t go killing the poor sod. Excites too much interest, a death does. You can break an arm or a leg and the odd rib, make his face look like only his mother would love it, but don’t see the bugger off.’

  Lockhart looked at the others, received nods of acceptance. ‘You want me to speak to Forshaw again? Give him the chance to change his mind?’ It was the nearest he could come to humour and his squat features twisted into a slow grin.

  Abruptly, Jason Fitton needed to be rid of them. They reminded him too vividly of what he was. He wanted the ample riches he now controlled, but he hated the instruments he used to gather them. The men trooped out of the office on his dismissal and he sat silently at his desk for a few moments. He left only five minutes after his enforcers. His manager, who was setting up the gaming tables, was happy to see him go. With his smooth and largely unlined face, his expertly cut dark blonde hair and his dark blue Savile Row suit, Jason Fitton was the most handsome presence here throughout the day.

  He was also by far the most dangerous one.

  Detective Chief Inspector Percy Peach had endured a difficult day. He’d spent a hectic twenty minutes persuading the CPS that they had a very strong case against Sean Catterick, when it should have been obvious to them that the rawest newly qualified lawyer could put him away. With his temper and self-control stretched to breaking point by this, he’d then spent the end of his day with Chief Superintendent Thomas Bulstrode Tucker, the man in nominal charge of Brunton CID. Tommy Bloody Tucker always annoyed him, and with his nerves frayed by the lawyers, he hadn’t been able to summon the resources to bait his chief as he normally did.

  He was glad to reach the battered 1930s semi-detached he called home, and even more pleased to see the blue Corsa in the drive, which signified that his wife was home before him. Detective Sergeant Lucy Blake had been his bagman (she objected rather fiercely to being described as his baglady). But she had been made to relinquish that role when she married him: police convention was that partners did not work together. Lucy was still a DS in the CID section, but, as Lucy Peach, she could no longer work with Percy. She missed that connection more than she was prepared to admit.

  She was stirring a pan of her home-made mushroom soup when Percy entered the house and took advantage of her preoccupation to stroke her bottom and then slide his hands round to her buxom belly. She twitched a little and then threatened him with a hot pan lid; neither action forced him to relinquish his hold upon her. She waved the spoon at him and said the first thing that came into her head to divert him. ‘How’s Clyde Northcott getting along?’

  Percy was aware that there was a small part of his wife that wanted her successor to fail, or at least not to be as successful as she had been. She was allowed to be human, he supposed. ‘Clyde’s doing OK. He doesn’t offer everything that you used to offer.’ He stroked her bottom again, receiving a sharp rap as she put down her stirring spoon, and said as dolefully as he could, ‘Everything moves on, doesn’t it? Nothing is the same from year to year.’ His face darkened. ‘Except Tommy Bloody Tucker.’

  ‘You used to use me to play the soft cop. Clyde doesn’t seem cut out for that.’

  ‘No. He’s the hard bastard. I use my immense versatility to play the sympathetic and understanding role you used to undertake.’

  She grinned at the thought of Percy in that guise. He wasn’t going to give her anything but jokes, as usual. He was too loyal to his staff to denigrate Northcott, even to please her. That was admirable in him and she wouldn’t have wanted it any other way, she told herself firmly.

  She had news for him, big news, but she decided he would have to wait for that. She’d choose her moment to make the maximum effect. In fact, she was wondering just what words to use and treasuring these last moments when she could hug her knowledge to herself. ‘Set the table and get into your comfortable gear,’ she ordered sternly. ‘This will be ready in five minutes.’

  The soup was good and she had curry ready to follow it. Pretty well his favourite meal, she calculated. Almost as if she was luring him into a good mood to deliver bad news, instead of the news she had. He was good in the house, Percy. Quite the modern man, in fact. If he was home before her, as he was on some days, he wired in to the domestic chores or got a meal ready. He pretended exactly the opposite at the station, of course, but that was his way. He liked to be the caricature of the chauvinist pig who exploited the women around him. But she had realized years ago that he was the opposite in many respects of most of the images he chose to create. They were a carapace to protect the man within.

  They took their time over the meal, swapping snippets of information about their days. They were smacking their lips over strawberries and cream when he judged it safe to speak of his new bagman again. ‘Clyde’s been asked to join a tennis club. Well, not just a tennis club. Birch Fields Tennis Club.’

  ‘Cor! He’ll stand out like a sore thumb there.’ She grinned at the thought of the huge black man standing awkwardly amongst weedy whites. ‘Is that racist?’

  Percy affected to weigh the suggestion seriously before shaking his head. ‘I shouldn’t think so. It’s more in the nature of a statement of fact.’

  There was a pause whilst both of them considered the image of Clyde Northcott in tight shorts amidst the Brunton middle classes on the immaculate surfaces of the courts at the town’s most exclusive tennis club.

  Then Lucy was seized with concern for Clyde, of whom she was very fond, despite the fact that he had succeeded her. ‘Does he play tennis?’

  ‘Apparently, he was quite good at some time in the distant past.’

  ‘It can’t be so distant. He’s five years younger than me.’

  ‘You’ll always be twenty-three to me, my love.’

  ‘Bugger off! I can see Clyde creating waves at Birch Fields. I hope he knows what he’s letting himself in for.’

  ‘He’s no fool. He can’t be if he’s taken your place.’ Percy checked his bullshit metre swiftly and carried on. ‘He’s got specialist advice. Our new graduate-entry officer seems now to be his tennis adviser.’

  ‘Elaine Brockman? She seems a nice kid, from what little I’ve seen of her.’

  ‘Clyde obviously thinks so. He seems anxious to put himself in her hands.’ Percy smiled lasciviously. As his bagman had told Elaine earlier in the day, there wasn’t much that went on in Brunton nick without Percy Peach knowing about it.

  They watched a repeated episode of Downton Abbey on the television – Percy had been sceptical of it when it was first released, but Lucy had managed to convince him to give it a go. Lucy, still full of anticipation of the delivery of her great news, could not concentrate. Percy, with his arm round her shoulders on the sofa, eventually said, ‘I know you like the period detail and I can see why. The costumes and the rooms are bloody marvellous. But the dialogue is crap.’

  ‘That’s what the Times review said – in slightly more eloquent terms.’

  ‘I haven’t read it,’ said Percy defensively. ‘I can’t help it if great minds think alike.’

  She snatched the remote from him impulsively and switched off the set. He stared at her in surprise, wo
ndering if he was about to receive a connubial bollocking for spoiling her enjoyment.

  ‘I’m pregnant!’ she said.

  She’d spent much of the day thinking of ways to phrase her news, by turns humorous, romantic and triumphant. In the crisis, she’d simply blurted it out in its most basic form.

  Percy’s response was equally basic. He turned her towards him so that she looked him full in the face and said, ‘Bloody hell, Nora!’ Then a beam that said much more than words suffused his face. He took her in his arms and embraced her long and tenderly. He sat and stared into her happy face again and repeated, ‘Bloody hell, Nora!’

  ‘You have such a way with words!’ she said. But she was more pleased by his silence than she would have been by a rush of unnecessary eloquence.

  The late-July evening meant that the bedroom was pleasantly warm, a contrast with the winter cold which made the antiquated heating system a perpetual source of complaint for Lucy. In contrast with his usual practice, Percy took longer to reach the sheets than his wife, as if the gravitas of the great news he carried was slowing his movements. Once there, he lay on his back beside her and directed what he thought must be a final ‘Bloody hell, Nora!’ at the ceiling.

  Lucy giggled a little beside him, waited a few moments for a movement which did not come, and then said softly into his ear, ‘I could do with a cuddle.’

  He moved cautiously to comply, stroking her shoulder blades, running his hands gently over the small of her back as tenderly as if it was the first time he had touched it, cupping the ample curves of her bottom as gently he had in their early, tentative days. She threw herself enthusiastically against him, then realized the reason for his unwonted caution. She said rather fiercely into his ear, ‘I won’t break, you know. I’m in the earliest stage of pregnancy, not recovering from a serious operation.’

  ‘Are you sure? I don’t want to—’