Backhand Smash

by J M Gregson

  The secretary said, ‘Doors that were previously shut to able people like Mr Northcott are opening all over the country. We wish Birch Fields to be a leader in matters like this. We do not wish to give the impression of being dragged unwillingly behind the rest of Brunton society.’

  If they were making their first move in this direction in 2015, they were far from leaders in the area. But Clyde wasn’t looking for a fight. People soon decided you had a chip on your shoulder if you chose to discuss colour at length. He said, ‘I’m glad we haven’t skirted the matter, as happens so often. In response to Mr Fitton’s original question, I would say that I do not anticipate any problems here deriving from my colour. Backhand volleys might give me much more trouble. And I have found the backhand smash totally impossible.’

  It was a welcome infusion of humour into a situation that had become very taut. All the other members of the committee knew what the chairman’s views on this were. Everyone knew that he had resisted efforts to broaden social recruitment and that it had only been the prospect of losing his position of eminence that had brought him to a reluctant acceptance of the new policy. Arthur Swarbrick had one final arrow in his quiver, which he now dispatched towards Clyde without prior warning. ‘What did you do before you joined the police service, Mr Northcott?’

  The man in isolation on the other side of the table took his time. He should have expected this, he thought. He was used to grilling people himself, and Percy Peach had taught him to produce his sharpest weapon when it was least expected. He said, ‘I had various jobs. My longest period of employment was as an apprentice at the Mullard’s electric factory.’

  ‘And did you complete that apprenticeship?’

  ‘I suspect you already know that I did not.’

  ‘And why was this, Mr Northcott?’

  Clyde shrugged his powerful shoulders. ‘My mother would tell you that I got into bad company. I prefer to take responsibility for my own actions. I didn’t work as hard as I should have done. I was very foolish. You don’t get paid very much as an apprentice and my friends always seemed to have more money than I had. I discovered other ways of making money, which seemed at the time easier and more attractive. I was mistaken.’

  Someone moved to alter this line of questioning, but Swarbrick held up his hand and smiled. He hadn’t got his own way very often recently on the matter of recruitment to the club. This was an opportunity to show these stupid liberals that he was right and they were very wrong. The club needed recruits from the top drawer, and this big black man was certainly not top drawer. No one used that expression any more, but he knew what he meant by it. He wondered how strongly he could put his next point. Better be a little cautious, he decided: the bugger was a policeman and no doubt knew all about his rights. ‘Were you involved with drugs at that time?’

  Clyde felt very calm now. He didn’t even feel any great resentment against this old fogey. Swarbrick was a man of his time and a relic of that time: you didn’t expect tolerance from men like him. He probably wasn’t going to get into this tennis club now, but that didn’t greatly matter, did it? He’d never quite understood why he was putting himself through tonight’s experience. ‘I was involved with illegal drugs, yes. For a very short period, I was even supplying them: I was not just a user but a small-time dealer. It was at that time that I first became seriously involved with the police.’

  This was good, Swarbrick thought. He’d expected the man to be evasive, but he was serving his own head up on a plate. The chairman tried not to sound too truculent as he leaned forward and said, ‘I think you should elucidate for us, Mr Northcott.’ Then, in case the man did not understand, he said, ‘Tell us all about this, please.’

  Clyde enunciated every syllable distinctly as he said, ‘I’m quite prepared to elucidate, Mr Swarbrick. I was a drug user myself for a time. I was never a heavy user and never in danger of becoming an addict. I said just now that I became seriously involved with the police and I should tell you how. I was questioned several times in connection with a murder that had taken place. I was completely innocent but for a time things looked very bad for me. I am in serious debt to the investigating officer in that case. He not only cleared my name but saw something in me that I had never seen in myself. Having established my innocence, he encouraged me to consider the police service as a career. I did so and have been fortunate since then to proceed to my present post.’

  The words came easily to him, though he had never planned anything like this before he came here. It was the first time he had publicly stated his debt to Percy Peach; the DCI had firmly suppressed any efforts to do that at the station. There was a silence: perhaps his listeners wanted to be certain that he had finished his peroration. Then Olive Crawshaw said quietly, ‘I think we should thank this candidate for being so frank with us. We much appreciate your honesty, Mr Northcott. Not everyone who seeks membership of Birch Fields is as honest as you have been tonight.’ She glanced along the table to each side of her. ‘Unless there are any further questions, I think we should now ask Mr Northcott to withdraw whilst we consider his application.’

  Swarbrick seemed anxious to put further questions. But the secretary nodded and said quickly, ‘If you would wait outside for a few minutes, Mr Northcott, we might be able to give you a decision tonight before we confirm it formally in writing within the next few days.’

  As he sat on his own in the lounge, Clyde was surprised to find that his fingers were shaking slightly as he looked at them. It had been a strange business in there. He’d felt totally out of his depth at the beginning, marooned in an alien environment. Then, when first Fitton and then Swarbrick had offered him challenges, he had felt much more at home, much more determined to make his point than he had at the outset, when he’d scarcely cared what they thought of him.

  He was surprised to find that there were still people playing tennis outside. He could hear the healthy thwack of ball on racket and the calls of the players. But the sun had already set and they wouldn’t be able to play for much longer. He tried to visualize himself out there, playing a men’s doubles perhaps, serving with all his might and dancing about at the net as he had done when he was still scarcely more than a boy.

  They had good courts here. The two all-weather surfaces had crisp clear lines and an even, predictable bounce. He felt a pulse of enthusiasm for the game that he hadn’t felt since he was sixteen and about to leave school. He’d come a long way since then: he wasn’t the innocent, unthinking, gawky boy whom older men had said was ‘promising’ at tennis. It would be nice to come back to the game as a grown man and give it his best again. But probably he wouldn’t be given the chance – not here, anyway. Those people who were in there discussing him knew all about his skeletons in the cupboard. They wouldn’t want him because of his colour and his job, and the drugs business and his late-teens life would give them the excuses they needed to reject him.

  ‘Mr Northcott?’

  The secretary must have opened the door very quietly, because Clyde hadn’t heard him. He was now shutting it equally carefully behind him before he turned to confront Clyde. ‘I’m happy to tell you that the committee has accepted your application for membership of Birch Fields. You will receive the formal confirmation of that within the next few days, but I thought you would like to know immediately. May I be the first to offer my congratulations?’

  They shook hands rather stiffly and then Clyde was away. He eased the Yamaha out of the car park and revved it very gently before moving away: a quiet exit was the least he could offer to Arthur Swarbrick, who he was quite sure had opposed his membership. The wind was cool upon his face, helping to control the unexpected exultation he felt. He’d stormed the citadel and triumphed. He had never thought it would mean so much to him.

  Elaine was in the Bull’s Head, the pub near her home where they had arranged to meet. ‘Don’t let the bastards grind you down!’ had been her closing injunction to him as he’d left the station. He couldn’t wait to give her his
news.

  He should have waited until he reached the table, but he saw her across the room and nodded at her with a great, stupid smile over the heads between them. She was on her feet by the time he reached the small table she had bagged for them. She threw her arms round his neck and kissed him hard upon the lips. Briefly, but on the lips. Bloody hell, Clyde!

  FOUR

  It was not a good beginning to a wet Thursday. DCI Peach had been summoned to the penthouse office of Chief Superintendent Thomas Bulstrode Tucker, Head of Brunton CID. It was pep-talk time.

  ‘The Chief Constable is very pleased with my clear-up figures for serious crimes. Over the last six months for which statistics are available, they are apparently the best in the north of England.’ Tucker clasped his hands on the table in front of him and tried unsuccessfully not to look smug.

  Percy had seen the figures, though he hadn’t anticipated that even Tommy Bloody Tucker would have the effrontery to claim the credit for himself. ‘Best in the north-west of England, I believe, sir. East Yorkshire has even better figures than ours.’

  Tucker waved a dismissive hand. ‘Rural communities, Percy. Not strictly comparable with our urban hotbed, I always maintain.’

  Peach didn’t like the use of his first name. Any attempt at matiness from T.B. Tucker was usually a prelude to something unpleasant. ‘Hotbeds are often useful to us, sir. It just depends whom we find in them.’

  Tucker looked hard over the rimless spectacles he had recently adopted, wondering what to make of this statement. He decided that it was safest to ignore it. This was a time to be magnanimous. ‘I am, as you are well aware, a fair man.’ He tried to ignore his DCI’s black eyebrows, which were rising in expressive arcs above the wide dark eyes. ‘I am aware, as I hope any responsible senior policeman would be, that I have not achieved these figures alone. My success is not entirely due to my own efforts.’

  He paused in expectation of assurances from his junior of his supreme excellence, but received only an irritating expression of total bafflement from Peach. He said with some irritation, ‘I am saying that you have contributed to these excellent results, Peach. I would go so far as to say that I could not have achieved them without you.’

  Percy was pleased to hear the return of his last name. He said sententiously, ‘We are a team, sir. I work at the crimeface and confront the actual villains; you maintain your overview of the crime scene and bring to us a wider perspective.’ You couldn’t go wrong if you fed senior officers’ own opinions back to them. That applied even when those opinions were meaningless bollocks, as Tommy Bloody Tucker’s pronouncements invariably were.

  Tucker stared at him suspiciously. As was often the case with Percy, he was sure that insolence was lurking, but he could not pin it down. ‘I’m saying that you’ve done well, Peach.’

  ‘Thank you, sir. I’ll communicate your congratulations to the lads and lasses down below who have run the risks and produced the results.’

  Tucker wasn’t sure he wanted to go as far as that. People in the service should respect rank, he felt – especially his rank. He said gruffly, ‘I’m offering you my congratulations, Peach. How far you choose to disseminate them is your own affair, but I would remind you of the need to maintain discipline in a society that seems increasingly to disregard it.’ He waited for confirmation of this oft-repeated view, but found Percy staring at his ceiling. ‘I don’t want any slacking, Peach. I want standards to be maintained.’

  ‘The price of freedom is eternal vigilance, sir.’

  The look over the spectacles became a glare. ‘That sounds like a quotation, Peach.’ He spoke as if his DCI had produced the vilest obscenity.

  ‘Might be Aristotle, sir,’ Peach said cheerfully. ‘Or might not.’

  ‘Anyway, my instructions are that you should ensure that there is no slacking. I hope that is clear.’

  ‘Eminently clear, sir. It gives me the chance to apprise you of our latest problem.’

  ‘Problem, Peach?’ Tucker asked heavily. He liked solutions, not problems.

  ‘An ongoing problem, sir. Jason Fitton.’

  ‘A prominent local businessman, Peach. An intelligent and well-educated man.’

  ‘An intelligent and well-educated crook, sir. A man who covers his tracks well but who will eventually come to grief.’

  ‘I am aware that he has at times been a suspect, but he has never been brought to court. He is a member of my Lodge.’

  ‘That is not an automatic guarantee of integrity, sir.’ Peach was studying the ceiling again, as if it was of surpassing interest to him.

  Tucker resisted the impulse to look up there himself. ‘He gives generously to the charities we support.’

  ‘That does not surprise me, sir. You should take his money and deplore his morals.’

  ‘Mr Fitton is a well-established and highly respected local employer. I would remind you that Fitton Metals is a sound and successful business.’

  ‘It was when Jason’s father ran it, sir. It is now no more than a front for far more dubious enterprises. Fitton owns most of the gambling outlets in our area, using dubious methods to maintain his monopoly. He also controls most of the brothels.’

  ‘This is hearsay, Peach. Until you have concrete evidence, you would be well advised to—’

  ‘Offers perks to policemen to encourage them to keep their mouths shut, sir. I don’t suppose that he’s made any suggestions to you at the Lodge, but—’

  ‘Indeed he hasn’t, Peach! And I tell you here and now that I resent the very suggestion that I would even consider—’

  ‘Oh, indeed, sir. But some officers have in the past been tempted by the sexual gymnastics that are apparently on offer from Fitton’s more experienced ladies of the night.’

  ‘Peach, that is enough! I wish you to be aware that I have never been offered and have no desire to be offered any such favours!’

  ‘No, sir. Of course not, sir. How fortunate are we who can get the full variety of sexual gymnastics in our own domestic environments.’

  Peach fixed his attention on a new point of the ceiling, in the furthest corner of the room, and pictured Tommy Bloody Tucker exploring the wilder sections of the Kama Sutra with his wife, Brunhilde Barbara, nicknamed thus because of her Wagnerian physique and vocal volume. A slow smile slowly suffused the DCI’s too-revealing features as the vision expanded and moved forward. Tucker looked at him with consternation and said rather desperately, ‘If Jason Fitton is the danger you say he is, then of course we must keep our eye on him.’

  ‘Yes, sir. I in the sleazier parts of the town, which his criminal empire dominates, and you in the more intimate exchanges of the Lodge.’

  The glare became a glower. ‘You should remember that no criminal charges have ever been brought against Mr Fitton. Proceed with discretion until you have real evidence, Peach. Innocent until proven guilty is still one of the pillars of our system.’ Tucker jutted his chin in Churchillian mode and stared past Peach at some more acceptable world.

  ‘And the price of freedom remains eternal vigilance, sir, as Aristotle may or may not have said. I shall remain vigilant wherever I see Mr Fitton’s baleful hands at work.’

  ‘I am sure you will find it very difficult to find the evidence you must have to pursue further action. And in the light of that—’

  ‘You are quite right, sir. He makes it very difficult for us to find the evidence to bring him to court. There is a man in the intensive care ward of our hospital this morning as a direct result of Mr Fitton’s orders, but I’m sure that as usual it will prove very difficult to trace the chain of command back to him.’

  Chief Superintendent Tucker’s eyes opened wide and focused hard upon his DCI. He was a copper, after all, though it was a long time since he had been an efficient or a likeable one. The last thing he wanted with his pension in sight was serious violence, maybe manslaughter. ‘You must do what you have to do, of course. But proceed with caution.’

  ‘I’ll do that, sir.’ For j
ust a moment they were two law-enforcers in pursuit of a common enemy. Then the moment passed and Peach said, ‘You wouldn’t like to pursue this enquiry yourself, sir? In view of the seriousness of the incident and your intimate knowledge of our leading suspect?’

  Tucker recoiled physically from the prospect of action. His body hit the back of his chair as he said, ‘I never interfere with my staff, as you know, Peach. I shall maintain my overview. And I don’t know Mr Fitton anything like as well as you seem to think I do.’

  Best to distance yourself, if the man really was a villain.

  Younis Hafeez had seen Clyde Northcott awaiting interview at Birch Fields Tennis Club the previous evening. Interesting that they were considering men like that. Hafeez had mixed feelings about it.

  It would take the heat off him in the club to an extent, he supposed. Pakistanis were accepted here, as they were in most other places in the town nowadays: with so many thousands of them in positions of authority in Brunton and other northern towns, you certainly couldn’t ignore them. Asians were taking over local government in many places, so the rest of the population had to pay attention to them. And men like Hafeez, who had wealth and exercised power, commanded respect. Younis knew better than most how respect followed in the wake of power and money.

  Birch Fields Tennis Club had been one of the last citadels to fall, but there were three Pakistanis and a rather larger number of Indians within its membership now – wealthy Indians had always been tennis players. They were still resented by some people, but that scarcely mattered any more: the tide of public opinion was with them. A black man, who would be so much more noticeable than them, wouldn’t do any harm to the standing of Asians in the tennis club, though. He would divert what prejudice remained and make it easier for already existing ethnic presences to establish themselves. Hafeez thought he might even stand for the committee next year.

  It would be easy enough to gain election if he chose the right time and carried out the necessary preparatory work. He’d get a hundred percent support from his fellow Pakistani members; they’d harness the liberal section of the club which he’d already identified and cultivated. That and the apathy that usually attended the annual elections would see him home. The hierarchy often had difficulty in persuading people to stand for office in the club; there might not even be the need for an election; he could wait to announce his candidacy until the last day and simply make up the required number of nominees for the positions available. He knew how to manage these things: he’d taken over in other and more important places than tennis clubs.