Chain of Command

by Nicole Dere

  Jackie nodded in the direction of the locked door, on the other side of which Sandra was holding the fort. ‘Your eyes and ears are working pretty well still, then? I bet this lot will make her wet her little pants!’

  Moira smiled and held up her hands in mock horror. ‘Please, Inspector, I couldn’t show this lot to my little San. The poor little flower would faint away at the very idea. So, what about Andy Wise then? Are we going to see her frolicking around in her buff, too? Because like I said, apart from helping members of the department to set up a nice little sideline in porno-vice and video tasties, I’d like to know what we’re getting out of it.’

  ‘Wait. Watch this first and keep both hands above the desk while you do!’

  The location was not Gresham Street but some larger, clearly more professional studio, the quality of camera work and the variety of angles and views of the protagonists much greater. Liz and Jill, in the briefest of bikinis, gambolled in what looked like a large version of a children’s paddling pool, filled with a glistening volume of artificial mud. The dialogue consisted of nothing more than giggles, then squeals and high-pitched screams, the action a melange of waving limbs and mock, girlie struggles. The wrestling romp ended with both girls stripping one another of the bikinis, which led briefly to another humorous and also highly stirring flash of white breasts and buttocks, until they too vanished under the glutinous coating and the mudlarks finally stood, gasping with effort, white teeth gleaming amid the darkness, and arm in arm waved goodbye to the camera.

  Moira was about to speak when Jackie imperiously held up a hand and nodded at the screen. A suave male in white tux and black bow tie began to list a whole load of info and names, quoting titles and websites, before he faded and, to the throbbing accompaniment of more guitar and drums, a tall black girl appeared dressed in what seemed to be two small chamois leathers over her sex and buttocks, and several beaded bracelets and anklets on arms and legs. She began dancing and swaying and making love to herself with a long phallus like a slightly curved banana.

  Jackie snapped off the picture and sat again with a soft chuckle. ‘You can watch the rest later, in private. It’s all a bit much for two old dikes like us, eh?’

  ‘Speak for yourself!’ Moira Sharp’s annoyance, which had been largely dissipated during the viewing, reasserted itself. ‘Like I said before, just where the hell is all this lot going, apart from turning your Christie bird into a talented porno star?’

  ‘Well, that’s just it. You saw that bloke spouting all that gobbledygook. That’s just what this is. All part of a porno flick, in a mega-buck market.’

  ‘What?’ Moira Sharp’s tone and expression were eloquent with scorn. ‘Two birds wrestling in mud? You could get away with that on terrestrial TV these days - and probably before the watershed.’

  ‘That’s just a taster. You haven’t seen the stuff that goes with it. But that doesn’t matter.’ She waved aside Moira’s protest airily. ‘It’s who, not what, that’s important. Guess who’s involving himself in this stuff? Yep, yours truly, Jack Palmer. Liz Grant was invited by the big man himself, and told to bring her new chum along. Jill will be able to get closer to him, get in on what’s going down. So we’ve just got to be a bit patient and we’ll have him, I know we will.’

  Reluctantly Moira was forced to accede to Jackie’s confidence, but she shook her head. ‘I’m still worried about Christie getting herself in so deep. She still seems wet behind her what’s-its. But I’ve got to admit, Jackie, I’d never have believed you’d have got her this far. All this...’ she nodded at the blank screen, ‘I’ve got to hand it to you, you’ve got a way with these young tarts. How do you do it?’

  ‘I swear to God, I don’t know how she does it. When that Christie slag walked into the nick that first day who’d have thought we’d be sat here watching her giving it welly any which way up and flashing it all about? Come on, Andy, tell us the boss’s secret. What is it she does to her girls to get them laying it all on the line for her? You must know. You’re one of the all-girls-together, you-lick-mine-and-I’ll-lick-yours muffin mafia now, aren’t you?’

  In the fetid dimness of the enclosed van, Andy could feel her face growing even hotter, the red blush rising along with her disgust. ‘Shut the fuck up!’ she hissed at Chopper Harris’s grinning features.

  ‘What’s oop, chook?’ he mocked, exaggerating her northern vowels. ‘Nobody blames you for booting old Bob the Driver into touch for Butch Barlow, giving up dick for dike. You’re a career girl after all, and look where it’s got you already. Out of uniform and into the elite!’ He gestured grandly at himself and Detective Sergeant Wills, who grinned in support.

  ‘I’ve been trying to do that for ages, haven’t I, Andy? Get her out of uniform,’ he explained needlessly to his colleague.

  ‘This is just about the perfect job for you two, isn’t it?’ Andy said scornfully. ‘Sat looking at dirty movies all day. You couple of pervs.’

  ‘Ooh, that hurts, babe,’ Chopper returned. ‘You shouldn’t bad mouth us like that. We can’t help being heteros.’

  ‘Fuck off!’ She moved away, though there was not far to go in the cramped interior, and looked forward through the side window of the front compartment, gazing across at the neat blue front door of 41 Gresham Street.

  She was angry with herself, for the way she let them get to her so easily. Her skin felt like egg shell these days. Her voice was all too ready to grow husky and tremble with emotion, and she felt the bitterness rising like bile at the thought of how discomposing had been the effect of Jackie Barlow’s turbulent eruption into her life. Tears were never far away. All her old sunny ebullience had evaporated, along with her confidence in dealing with colleagues like these two, with whom she had happily sparred and held her own, in those days, their passing hardly into double figures yet, now rapidly acquiring the epithet ‘good old’.

  It was a torment now to be cooped up in this tiny capsule with them. She felt like physically shrinking from them every time they touched or came near her. She had put on an old pair of jeans, a baggy sweater over her T-shirt, and an old pair of hiking boots, and still she felt constantly on edge and aware of her body. ‘I’m going to take a stroll around for a bit.’ She tapped her side, where her radio was clipped under her sweater. ‘Call me if anything comes up.’ She nodded at the small monitor.

  ‘Yes, boss.’

  She blushed heavily at Harris’s heavy sarcasm. She turned pointedly towards Wills, who as sergeant was the senior officer. ‘Is that OK?’

  ‘Is that OK what?’

  ‘Is that OK, Sergeant?’ she emphasised furiously.

  ‘All right, but don’t be too long. And don’t go trying to chat up any strange women in the park.’

  ‘Piss off!’ She struggled with the rear door, stepped down and slammed it viciously behind her.

  ‘Do you reckon she really is doing a turn for Barlow?’ Wills stared through the small, deliberately grimy window at the back of the vehicle. ‘Got a lovely arse,’ he reflected philosophically, watching the attribute in question rolling delightfully under the tight jeans as it moved away from him.

  ‘Course she is. How did a thick bloke like you ever make sergeant? Just look at the facts. One minute she was about to get a rocket from the boss. Dripping in her kecks with fright she was that day. Do you remember? The next thing you know she’s off sick for two days, Bob Tidy’s been given the boot, and Andy’s back, walking like she’s just had a hump with King Kong. Straight into our department, no bother. It’s even the same MO, man. Remember? Young Jill turns up first day, promptly whipped off by the boss. No sign of her for three days then in she comes looking like she’s had half the Household Cavalry up her, and we learn she’s moved in with our Butch. Do me a favour! I tell you, Willy, I’m seriously thinking of putting in for a sex change. The old chop. Have the lot off, toggle and two, gone.’ He made a whis
tling noise and chopped his hand down like a butcher’s cleaver. ‘Only way we’ll ever get on in our nick, mark my words. Mind you,’ he concluded sombrely, scratching his groin as though to check his genitals were still all present and correct, ‘the way old Butch and Razor Sharp are going we won’t need no op, mate. They’re gonna do it for us, believe me.’

  ‘Come on in, sweety. Let me take your coat - and anything else that’ll make you feel more comfortable. No secrets between us any more, eh, Andy? How’s it going? Managed to keep Chopper and Willy out of your pants? Or has the van been bouncing on its springs all day?’ She ushered Andy into the small hallway of the flat and closed the door. As the girl slipped off her coat Jackie took it and hung it on one of the row of hooks on the wall. Andy turned to move into the living room, but Jackie’s arm shot out and seized her round the waist. ‘Hey, aren’t you going to say hello first? You’re not on duty now.’ She gave a deep, suggestive chuckle. ‘Or let’s just say this is a different kind of duty. This is the night shift, my girl. This is under cover of a different kind.’

  For just an instant Andy stiffened with a hint of resistance, then she relaxed, let herself be drawn in close and her lips were open to receive the fierce, lengthy kiss planted there by Jackie’s possessing mouth. ‘Did I ever tell you, you’ve got the sexiest lips in Benbrough, if not the whole county?’ She was still holding Andy tight, their bodies thrust together, and she kissed her again with aggressive hunger.

  Andy was shocked at her body’s pulsing response. She was gasping, drawing in great gulps of air when Jackie finally released her, and her legs were weak and shaking. She had to focus to dissipate the grey fogginess which seemed to overcome her, in order to hear what her superior was saying.

  ‘I expect you’ve been wondering what the hell’s been going on.’ Jackie moved over to the drinks cabinet, poured, and handed Andy a gin and tonic without asking her what she wanted. As Andy took it the single cube of ice chinked softly against the cold glass. She murmured her thank you like a well-mannered little girl at a party, and allowed herself to be placed on the two-seater settee. Jackie sat beside her. Their knees rubbed intimately together. She grinned. ‘How’s your beautiful bum? Have the bruises gone? You can show me later.’

  Andy felt helpless but said nothing, her dark eyes, big and vulnerable, fixed on Jackie’s smiling face.

  ‘And I’m so looking forward to it. Did I ever tell you, you’ve got the sexiest arse in Benbrough?’ Her left hand had drifted onto Andy’s right knee as she was speaking, and caressed firmly, possessively, tracing the inner thigh upward.

  ‘Ah...’ her thumb and forefinger pinched the navy blue material of Andy’s slacks, ‘golden rule here, sweety. My girls never wear slacks, OK? Didn’t I tell you that? I thought you would have realised, a bright little thing like you.’ She slapped the leg playfully. ‘Maybe have to give you a little chastisement for that.’ She chuckled with evident pleasure at the sudden widening of alarm in the dark eyes. ‘Not as bad as the last beating, don’t worry. No blisters this time. Just the pinkest of rosy glows, eh? You’ll love it.’

  The hand left Andy’s leg, and instead its fingers quickly undid the top four buttons of Andy’s crisp white blouse to expose the white bra beneath. The full breasts were held in half cups only, whose tops, scalloped with a thin piping of embroidery, cut diagonally across the swelling rounds to create a deep, inviting cleavage.

  ‘Peek-a-boo...’ Jackie’s firm fingers dug into the wired underside of the right bra cup and flicked it up, displacing the fragile material so that the pink nipple and its generous surround were spilt out as their container sprang up to rest on the upper slopes. She did the same to its companion. ‘They were almost spilling out anyway, love.’ Her busy fingers tweaked first one nipple then the other, pinching until both stood out in firm splendour. ‘Hmm... Pinky and Perky. Come on, let’s get them out of it, eh?’

  She pulled Andy forward, finished unbuttoning the blouse and slipped it off her shoulders and down, clear of her arms. She unsnapped the bra fastener and removed it too. Andy made an instinctive movement to shield her breasts with her arms and Jackie plucked her wrists away. ‘Where’er you be, let your tits go free,’ she mocked. ‘Did I ever tell you, you’ve got the best boobs in Benbrough?’ Her hands were rough now, the fingers clawed as she explored the contours of the warm, yielding flesh, and Andy leaned weakly into her greedy embrace, received the searching kisses on her throat and shapely shoulders, and then shuddered as that rousing mouth targeted the breasts she had just bared.

  Jackie’s face was flushed as she raised it from her rootling attack, and she said thickly, ‘Actually, there is a bit of business we need to see to first. Let’s get it over and done with before I lose the plot altogether, you hot little slag.’

  As Andy rose and followed Jackie over to the table by the window, where several papers were spread out, she felt distinctly uncomfortable, naked as she was above the waist, and below contrastingly dressed in her tailored navy slacks and smart, low heeled shoes. She found time to ponder why her boss had so enthusiastically half undressed her, only to turn her thoughts back to the line of duty, but then decided it was a deliberate ploy on Jackie’s part to keep her thoroughly disoriented, and to reinforce the fact that her power over her subordinate was absolute. It extended to both physical and mental dominance. If it was so, Andy was forced to concede that it was damnably effective, for she was extremely conscious of sitting there, bare-breasted in the lamp glow, while Jackie detailed the rapid developments in the case which had taken place during the last few days.

  ‘See this girl? Her name’s Karyn Something-or-other. One of these foreign names I can never remember, let alone pronounce. She’s East European. What we could have called Yugoslavian in the good old days, but now God knows where she’s from.’

  Andy stared at a glossy print of a statuesque figure. Her hair was white-blonde, long and thick, gathered in a loose ponytail. The facial characteristics were certainly Slavic, with high cheekbones, slanting eyes and a wide, generous mouth. She was dressed in a black basque, which nipped her waist in to a striking slenderness, particularly in view of the fullness of her figure, highlighted by ripe breasts and the sexy swell of hips and thighs. The tiny garment, with vertical panels of dark net, reinforced by thin lines suggestive of an old-fashioned corset, was fastened at the back, probably by an arrangement of hooks and eyes. It held up the pale breasts for inspection and approval, as they appeared to spill from the upper section, exposed to the nipple almost, the upper edge of the dark areolae peeking coyly from the lace-fringed bodice. At its lower extreme the brief garment ended above the pleasing curve of her belly, punctuated by the eye of her navel. Below that was smooth white flesh leading to the decorated edging of a miniscule triangle of black lace hugging the swell of her sex mound. Through the hazy transparency of this tiny cache-sexe, there was no evidence of any pubic hair adorning the pout of flesh. From the base of the basque long suspender straps ran down, bisecting the full paleness of the thighs to the tops of the sheer dark stockings covering shapely legs.

  ‘Kind of cute, isn’t she, in that sleepy, smouldering sort of Russky way?’

  Jackie’s words, accompanied by that hard laugh and the increase of pressure from her fingers on Andy’s shoulder, made her start. Once again she was secretly disturbed by the tenor of her thoughts, and her response to the sight of the photo, which were uncomfortably close to Jackie’s teasing remark.

  ‘But I didn’t bring you here to drool over my private porno collection, sweety. Point is, this slag is newly arrived on the scene, along with some Indian lass we haven’t got a snap of as yet. To make a short story even shorter, they’re part of a consignment, probably brought in up north, Hull or somewhere, shipped over as part of the flesh trafficking that’s all the rage these days. But all that matters as far as we’re concerned is they’re in with the crowd surrounding Jack Palmer and his mates. You’ve s
een how well our Jilly’s got herself in with the red dike and that blue movie bunch. Now all we’ve got to do is nail this,’ she nodded at the photograph, ‘with Mr Palmer, and as the film says, we’ll get him! Right?’

  She took Andy’s glass from her and moved across to refill it, again without asking whether she wanted another drink or, if so, what. She brought it back to her and obediently Andy took a large sip. ‘There’s a few other mug shots, nowhere near as entertaining, of some of Palmer’s regular crew. Memorise them and keep your pretty peepers peeled. I’ll have you watching Palmer’s pad in town. You’ll be linked with Chopper and Willy on watch at Gresham Street. They’ll give you the nod if any of them show up there, especially these two birds. If we spot them we stick to them as close as we can; I’m hoping Jill can give us the low-down on them in the next day or two. Then we don’t hang about. We grab ‘em, and hey presto! Haul in Jack and do him for trafficking, and anything else we can pin on the scumbag.’

  She straightened up and withdrew her arm, which had been draped heavily over Andy’s shoulders. ‘And so to bed,’ she purred. ‘Missed me, have you? I’ll be most disappointed if your knickers aren’t all soggy for me, darling.’

  Andy was almost relieved. She had felt very vulnerable and somewhat ridiculous, sitting topless at the table. Besides, she knew that the brief interlude involving work had been no more than a preliminary to the main event. She knew - had known all along - she would be spending the night here, with her boss, and that little of it would be spent in actual slumber. There was another moment of excruciating embarrassment when, having divested herself of her trousers, she had to endure mocking from her superior, who was still sitting fully dressed on the edge of the bed. ‘Oh, I love it! That is so cute, my little butch.’ She was pointing at the navy-blue cotton socks Andy was wearing - part of the regulation issue for when she wore trousers with her uniform. Hastily she bent to pull them off, but Jackie swiftly stopped her. ‘No, no, leave them on! I love it. Just take your knicks off, sweety, and leave the rest to me!’