The Big Snow

by David Park

  Swift hurried to grab his coat, stuffing his book in the jacket of his pocket. ‘Reading your Sherlock Holmes again, son?’ Burns asked, his tongue lolling out the corner of his mouth as he concentrated on tying the bow. Swift paused to answer, then saw Gracey’s head beckoning him out of the room. He walked into the corridor where Gracey was brushing the smut from his hat and heard him say, ‘Get Nugent to sew a bit of silk into the seat of the breeks, for there’s nothing like tweed for itchin’ the arse off you.’ Then there was the slam of the door and the press of Gracey’s large palm in the small of his back, pushing him forward.

  Swift thought the car wasn’t going to start at first and Gracey, sitting in the passenger seat, drummed his fingers on the dashboard in irritation. Much of what he did irritated Gracey and sometimes he brooded on his bad luck in being placed with someone who regarded him with at best indifference and at worst disdain. His awareness of those feelings in his mentor served to make him nervous, cack-handed, assume a clumsiness that was instinctively foreign to him. At first he had tried humour, then deference, but nothing he did was able to make any impact on the older man so now he had retreated into a kind of neutrality.

  Gracey sat beside him but the bulk of the man seemed to fill the whole car. He had a habit of sitting slightly angled on the seat and holding the passenger strap as if bracing himself for a collision, and because he had pushed the seat back as far as it would go the few words he spoke always seemed to come from behind Swift’s head. But for the moment he had nothing to say and when Swift asked for directions he was told just to drive.

  It was almost Sunday-morning quiet, and through the windscreen of the car the world appeared sharp-angled and starkly defined by the cold. Those people who were on the road looked bent and diminished in their scurry to their destination. Swift thought of attempting conversation and sifted possible topics in his head but plumped for the safety of silence. But as the almost empty road unwound before him he drifted into imagination and played out sterling little scenarios of bravado, shaped by half-remembered snatches of films. When he felt Gracey’s sudden prod in his ribs his first reaction was to blush as if he had been discovered in something shameful and it took him a second to absorb the fact that he was being told to slow down. When he glanced at Gracey he met his eyes staring at him, his head angled away from the road. ‘Slow down, will you,’ he hissed out of the narrow slit of his suddenly toothless mouth. ‘See thon boy coming towards us? That’s none other than Jackie Brown – must have just got out. The bastard! If there was any justice in this world they’d have thrown away the key on him long ago. Don’t look at me, son, watch where he goes. Over my shoulder. I don’t want the weasel to see me.’

  Swift watched the tall, spindly figure pause to look in a shop window. He was wearing a leather jacket with the collar turned up and jeans. His hands were shoved into the pockets of the jacket, leaving his long arms sticking out like handles to his body. As they passed him, the man took out a cigarette packet and searched in his pockets for something to light it. Gracey was watching him in the wing mirror, the leather seat squirming and squeaking under the weight of his movements. ‘Take the next left,’ he said, pointing at it as if Swift might not see it, ‘then turn back on the road and keep him in sight.’ Swift felt a little rush of excitement and in his haste clanked the gears. When he turned into the side street a group of boys were playing football against the gable wall and he had to slow down. Gracey leaned across and pumped the horn, then rolled down the window and shouted for them to ‘bugger off before he had their names and the ball as well. As he reversed the car he rasped the gears again and Gracey looked at him with renewed exasperation. ‘You wanted to drive the car, didn’t you?’ he asked. Swift didn’t reply but concentrated on making the right turn. However, when they headed back down the road there was no sign of the man. Gracey spat out of the still open window.

  ‘What was he in for?’ Swift asked.

  ‘Never bloody enough – he’s a slippy bastard. Always squeezes himself to the edge of the frame. But nothing happens on this road without his hand being in it. He did the O’Kane job – they beat the old man to a pulp for a case of cheap watches and a few trinkets.’

  ‘There he is,’ said Swift, pointing him out as he left a shop with a paper under his arms.

  ‘Going to pick his runners.’ Gracey answered, peering at the man’s back while he headed towards Madigan’s bar. ‘Obviously got some money already.’

  Swift stopped the car round the corner from the pub as Gracey ordered, then watched him swivel sideways as he lifted himself slowly out of the car. He didn’t know if he was supposed to stay or accompany him so he sat clutching the wheel with both his hands while he tried to make up his mind. ‘Are you for sitting there, then, or you wantin’ to learn about being a detective?’ Gracey said, bending down so that he filled the whole of the open door. There was a thin wheeze lining his breathing as if the sudden burst of cold had tightened his throat. ‘And don’t forget to lock the doors – I’m not walking back in this weather.’ Gracey was already pushing open the green-glassed door of the pub as he hurried to catch up. On impulse he grabbed the back of Gracey’s coat. ‘What are we doing? Are we going to arrest him?’

  ‘Arrest him? How can you arrest someone who’s just out of prison? We’re going to do what you do in a pub – have a drink.’

  Inside they were hit by the sudden mottled fug of cigarette smoke and the sweet stale smell of beer. The electric light seemed to oscillate with the swirl of the smoke and the light that filtered through the squares of coloured glass. Some heads turned slightly on their entry, then narrowed back to their drinks. Swift was aware of eyes watching them in the mirrors behind the bar and for the first time felt some comfort in the size of Gracey as they sidled into a corner booth and slid along the shiny smoothness of the wood.

  ‘Well, as it looks like you’re not goin’ to offer, what’ll you be havin’?’

  ‘An orange juice please.’

  ‘In the name of all that’s holy, son, I can’t be going up to the bar in a place like this and asking for an orange juice. Have a wee Bush with me.’

  Swift hesitated and started to mumble something about being on duty but stopped when he saw the expression on Gracey’s face.

  ‘Listen, son, if it helps you, think of it this way. We’re in disguise in a place of hardened drinkers, the only way we have to maintain our cover is to blend in. An orange juice would run the risk of blowing that and put our whole mission in jeopardy.’

  ‘And what is our mission?’ he asked.

  ‘I need to have a wee word with Jackie boy, sort a few things out.’

  ‘Wouldn’t the station be a better place than this?’

  ‘No, this place will do just fine, just fine. For sure, what’s better than a quiet word over a friendly drink?’

  He watched the broad stretch of Gracey’s coat as he ambled to the bar, then tried to look nonchalant by running a hand through his hair and slumping back in the seat. He glanced round but couldn’t see Brown. Perhaps he had already gone out after seeing them enter. At the bar Gracey was leaning over it, the way a farmer might drape himself over a gate. Swift could see in the mirror that Gracey was talking to the barman but getting only nods or a shake of the head in return, then while the barman turned to the optics Gracey turned sideways to peruse the bar, his white hair undimmed by the grainy striations of light. He had pushed a hand into his trouser pocket, revealing a glimpse of shirt and green braces under his opened coat and jacket.

  Swift straightened as Gracey returned from the bar, the two small glasses almost lost inside the cup of his hands. ‘Get that down you, boy, and chase some of this cold away,’ Gracey said when he handed him the whiskey.

  ‘I don’t see Brown,’ Swift said, staring at the glass in front of him.

  ‘He’s skulking over there in the snug,’ Gracey answered, without lifting his head. He, too, stared at his drink but it was with an obvious sense of anticipation, an unwi
llingness to rush the pleasure. ‘The best part of a drink – thinking about it,’ he said, lifting the glass and holding it up to the grimed brush of light. Then just as he raised it to his lips his eyes angled across the bar and he set the glass down again.

  ‘Listen, Swift, I’m going to the toilet to join Mr Brown in a leak. I want you to stand outside the door and not let anyone in. And if I want you to come in I’ll shout for you. Have you got that?’ Swift nodded and then in an afterthought asked what he should say if anyone wanted to use the toilet. ‘Tell them it’s broken, tell them it’s a fruits’ convention – tell them anything you like, but just make sure you do what you’re supposed to.’

  Gracey levered himself up from the bench by pressing both hands down on the table. As Swift went to follow he was told to wait a minute, enjoy some of his drink before he took up position, and while Gracey headed towards the toilet he took his first sip of the whiskey and felt its slow burn in his throat. He timed the minute on his watch, then walked as casually as he could towards the door. Sticking his hands in the pockets of his trousers the way he had seen Gracey do, he fluffed out the sides of his coat in the hope that it made him seem broader. There were heads along the bar turned towards him and he half whistled a thin little stream of air in response, then inspected the nails on his right hand. Already he had heard the first shout but he wasn’t sure if it had been Gracey’s or Brown’s because it had been shrill and twisted out of shape by the fierce force that drove it. It was followed by banging and the clatter and scuffle of feet. There was a scream of swearing and more banging, loud enough for everyone in the bar to hear, and what must be Brown’s voice shouting a tangled string of obscenities that rose and fell on an ebb and flow of sudden pain. Swift glanced at the door, shuffled his feet and folded, then unfolded, his arms. He was aware of a man coming towards him and he squared himself while stroking his chin with his fingers. He needed a shave. The man went to walk round him without acknowledging his presence until forced to by Swift’s outstretched arm.

  ‘Is it against the law now to have a slash?’ the man sneered.

  ‘You’ll have to wait,’ Swift said, tasting the whiskey on his breath and wishing it was courage.

  ‘What right have you to come in here throwing your weight about?’ the man asked, assuming a bristling aggression, but Swift could tell that whatever violence the man could muster would be confined to his words and the knowledge gave him confidence. There was another stream of strangled abuse from behind the door.

  ‘Nobody’s throwing their weight around – Mr Gracey’s just having a friendly word. He’ll be finished any second now and then you can slash to your heart’s content.’

  ‘It doesn’t sound too friendly to me,’ the man said, screwing up his eyes and angling his head to one side, ‘and if our Jackie gets hurt you’re in big trouble.’ He tried to push past Swift but it was half-hearted and easily repulsed. But over his shoulder he could see two other men getting up from their seats – he wasn’t sure, but he thought one of them had lifted a bottle off the bar. A sudden image of an old man’s face beaten to a pulp shuddered against his senses.

  ‘Listen, friend,’ he said, inflating and edging his voice, ‘in case you don’t know, Detective Sergeant Gracey’s a man who doesn’t like being interrupted in the line of his duty and he’d take it poorly, very poorly indeed. Now go back and sit down and keep your nose out of what doesn’t concern you.’ He saw the two men hesitate, before taking their seats again. The man closest to him stepped backwards and leaned against the bar, only his head jutting out and jerking towards him. He had done what Gracey had told him – he had kept his end up – but now he looked at the door behind him with rising impatience. There was the sound of a door being slammed inside and a muffled thud. Perhaps something had gone wrong, perhaps Gracey needed help. He hesitated. Everyone was looking at him. He turned and edged the swing door open with the outside of his left foot until there was a gap of about nine inches. Through the gap he saw Brown on his knees, his long thin fingers holding on to the rim of the wash basin, an open razor glinting like a grin in the grime of the floor, and his eyes fixed on Gracey staring back at him as he raised his wooden truncheon high in the air above his head, then without breaking their locked gaze brought it drumming down on Brown’s hand. Swift moved his foot but before the door could slip closed he heard the breaking of bones, the split of enamel and a scream that sounded like a wounded animal. A sour whiskey sickness surged in his throat as Gracey came through the door cleaning his hands elaborately with a white sail of a handkerchief.

  ‘I told you not to come in,’ he muttered from the corner of his mouth. A silver strand of hair had fallen forward across his brow and he smoothed it back into place. Without looking round Swift knew someone was going into the toilet, but Gracey seemed in no hurry and as they passed their table he was grabbed by the shoulder. ‘Never waste a good drink,’ he said and, lifting his glass in a salute to the eyes giving him their hate, threw the contents to the back of his throat, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

  ‘I told you not to come in,’ he said again as the car moved off.

  ‘I thought you might need help,’ he answered.

  There was no answer, just a slow, throaty laugh that seemed to come from behind his head and rolled round the inside of the car like the dankest of fogs.

  That night as Swift lay in his iron-framed bed in the cavernous barracks and finished his crossword, he tried not to think of what he had seen. He took comfort in the way his mind could unravel the cryptic clues, the anagrams. That was what it should be like. Thinking. Solving clues, seeing the connection between things – how they fitted together. Joining small parts together to complete the full picture. That would be the future. The likes of Gracey were dinosaurs, headed for extinction. He tried to hold on to that idea as he pulled the sheets and blankets around him more tightly and squirmed in search of a pocket of warmth. Then he closed his eyes and hoped that dreams were silent.

  It was after nine and there was still no sign of Gracey. The first burst of snow had fallen through the night and it was being reinforced by fresh falls. In the Detective Sergeant’s office the fire had been lit but there was little sign of life about it. Swift sat down at the typewriter and started to type the report Gracey had left for him. He found some pleasure in correcting the spelling mistakes and unravelling the confusing knots of sentences that spewed across the page in copperplate. It began with the required ‘I beg permission to report . . .’ and continued in a deferential voice that bore no resemblance to the writer’s own. Swift drew consolation from the fact that the awkward expression made Gracey seem smaller, less at ease with the world, less sure of himself. He conjured an image of Gracey raising his bulk on to his toes and gingerly taking tentative, diminutive steps across the thin ice of words. For a second he thought of inserting something ludicrous in the report, but contented himself with the pleasure of the idea. Gracey didn’t trust him to do anything right and that included typing a report, so he was bound to check it.

  When he was finished he went out to the main desk. Maguire was writing up something in a ledger. ‘Nothing happening?’ Swift asked. Maguire didn’t lift his head as he said no. Swift swivelled the Occurrence Book towards him and scanned the events of the night. A drunk and disorderly, a minor collision between a car and a cyclist, a missing dog. Not much more. His eye caught an entry at the bottom of the page. Maguire saw him looking at it. ‘Don’t ask me what that’s all about. Forsyth found this old biddy wandering the streets in a wedding dress – in her bare feet and all. Off her head. To get her in the car they had to tell her they were taking her to the church.’ Swift righted the book and looked at the front doors of the barracks as if inviting a customer. Suddenly both doors bumped open and the front wheel of a bicycle appeared, followed a few seconds later by the rest of the bike and the snow-spattered bulk of Gracey. There was a rim of snow on the top of his hat like icing on the top of a bun. Maguire and Swift smiled instin
ctively, then blanked it out as Gracey looked up at them. His face was red and shiny with water, and the dark weft of his overcoat was spangled and starred by snow. His shoulders wore white epaulettes as if he had been enlisted in some army.

  ‘Is it still snowing, then, Sergeant Gracey?’ Maguire asked.

  Swift tried to stifle his snigger as Gracey quivered like a huge jelly and shook the snow from his shoulders.

  ‘You’re wasted behind that desk – it’s the bloody head of Detectives you should be with a sharp mind like that,’ Gracey said as he took out his handkerchief and dried his face. ‘Bloody snow – it’s comin’ down in buckets. Detective Constable Swift, don’t stand there with your two arms the same length, take charge of this bike and get it dried off.’

  ‘The bike should be in the yard,’ Maguire said while he stared at the dark patches forming on the wooden floor. ‘Regulations.’

  ‘Bugger off,’ Gracey said, still drying his face. It had started to shine like the skin on a fresh red apple. ‘I’m not leaving it outside in that, the saddle’s already soakin’. Swift, stick it down the corridor near the store.’

  The metal of the bicycle was cold against Swift’s skin and as he wheeled it he left a thin snail-trail of damp across the uneven boards. Big as the bike was, Swift struggled to imagine it bearing the weight of Gracey. When he returned to the office Gracey was drying his backside against the fire. Snaking little tendrils of steam rose up from the cloth. His soft hat had changed from its normal brown to black. ‘Soddin’ snow,’ Gracey repeated to himself. ‘Did you rub that bike dry? I don’t want it rustin’ to hell.’ Swift nodded. As the damp burning smell of Gracey’s clothes leached into the room his own spirits sank. Gracey was in a foul mood: he would hardly want to stir out of the barracks unless it was an absolute necessity, and that created the prospect of a long and unpromising day. He tried to think of a possible route of escape but he was too tied to Gracey’s direction to act independently. Without being told, he went to get two mugs of tea.