Call & Response

by J. J. Salkeld

  Copeland smiled. ‘Good lad, Pete. Thanks. I appreciate you making the effort. I know this kind of thing is shitty, but it needs to be done.

  ‘Aye, sure.’

  ‘Do you enjoy your work?’

  ‘Some of it, aye. But sometimes I wish I’d just stayed on the help desk at HQ. It was boring, but you know….’

  ‘Yeah, I know.’

  ‘I don’t know how you lot do it sometimes, and that’s the honest truth. I suppose you must just switch off, like, at the end of your shift.’

  ‘That’s a good idea’ said Copeland. ‘I must remember to try it sometime.’

  Justin Walker couldn’t help himself. Every time he took a photo of Gary Flynn he found himself thinking about the framing, and trying to catch the perfect moment. He wondered if Police photographers did the same.

  He’d been following Gary Flynn for two hours and, on the basis of what he’d seen so far, a life of crime didn’t seem all that interesting. It was busy enough though, he’d give Flynn that. He’d already been to an industrial unit that seemed to be some kind of metal fabrication workshop, and then Flynn had two more meetings, one in the car park of a drive-through, and the other in the car park of a supermarket. Flynn had popped inside the latter afterwards, and come back with a couple of bags of shopping. Justin thought about the everyday lives of criminals, and decided that it probably wasn’t all stirring your tea with a long-nosed ’38. There’d be the gas bills and running out of bread, just like there was for everyone.

  Flynn was driving now, heading out of Carlisle towards the M6. How far should Justin follow him? He didn’t have much fuel in the car, for the simple reason that he didn’t have much money in the bank, so it couldn’t be far. He tried to think of a reason that Pepper might believe, if he ended up having to let Flynn go. And had he actually achieved anything so far? He doubted it very much. Following the bloke for an hour or two was like trying to guess a person’s whole life-story by peeping through their letterbox. What could she possibly expect him to find out?

  But they didn’t join the motorway, and they drove on, towards Hexham. After four or five miles Flynn turned right, and Justin didn’t have to slow down to let him pull away a bit, because Flynn’s 4x4 accelerated hard. Justin became convinced that he’d been spotted, and for a moment he imagined coming round a corner and finding Flynn’s car stopped and blocking the road, with the bloke standing there, pointing a pump-action shotgun in his direction. Now that would make a picture.

  It didn’t happen though, and after another mile Justin was just close enough to see Flynn turn down the drive to a rather nice hotel. Justin knew it was rather nice because he’d photographed a wedding there the summer before. He hated doing them, right up until the moment that the payment for the work hit his bank account.

  Justin parked as far away from Flynn as he could, and watched as the man walked up the front steps and on, into the hotel. His camera was on the passenger seat, so he picked it up and took a couple of pictures of the facade, just for fun. He was slightly irritated when a big Mercedes stopped, right in shot, and a man got out of the passenger side. Even from this distance, and with the gravel dust hanging in the air, the man looked prosperous somehow. Maybe it was the haircut, perhaps it was the suit. Justin refocussed, and snapped one frame when the man turned his head, looking in his direction. Then he turned back to the car, said something to the driver through the open passenger door, and then walked round the back of the car and towards the hotel’s front steps. Had he been spotted, thought Justin? He wasn’t waiting around to find out, and he kept an eye on the rear view mirror all the way back to Carlisle. But he was almost certain that he hadn’t been followed. At least, not by the Merc.

  He parked in a side street near his own place, and called Pepper on her private mobile. It went straight to voice mail, so he left a message saying that he’d send her the pictures that he’d taken as soon as he got home. ‘But don’t expect too much. The bloke seems to be as boring as Adam. Well, maybe not quite that bloody boring, but you get my drift.’

  Pepper listened to Justin’s message while she was having her home-made sandwich at lunchtime, but she’d barely started the second half when her phone rang. It was the Duty Inspector.

  ‘Billy Brown is at the front desk, Pepper. He says he’s been robbed.’

  She chewed and swallowed.

  ‘I know’ said the Inspector, filling the dead air. ‘I was bloody speechless too. Talk about a turn up, eh?’

  ‘I’ll be down in two minutes.’

  ‘Fantastic. And make sure you circulate his statement, would you? It’s been another shit week in paradise, and I could do with a laugh.’

  ‘About time’ said Brown, when Pepper opened the door to the interview room that he was waiting in. ‘I’ve been sat here for bloody ages.’

  ‘You must be confusing us with the Ambulance service, Billy. A man in your condition, they’re the ones you really don’t want to have to wait for.’

  ‘Very funny.’

  ‘I hear you’ve been robbed. Is that right?’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘Have you ever heard of poetic justice, Billy?’

  ‘No. What are you going on about? I’ve come to report a robbery. That’s still a crime, ain’t it?’

  ‘So they say. Go on then, tell me what happened.’

  ‘I was talking to a group of lads, near the shops.’

  ‘On your estate, this is?’

  ‘Aye. I said that they had something of mine, like, and that I wanted it back.’

  ‘And this wouldn’t be the stuff that was taken from you after you were so effectively detained by that public-spirited window frame the other day?’

  ‘No, ‘course not. It was other gear. I mean other stuff, that I owned fair and square, like.’ Billy was a terrible liar, but Pepper couldn’t be bothered to remind him of the fact. She was pretty sure that she’d told him before, anyway.

  ‘All right, and then what happened?’

  ‘They surrounded me, like.’

  Pepper laughed. ‘Blimey, Billy, they surrounded you, did they? How many of them were there? Fifty?’

  ‘Sod off. I’ve been threatened and robbed here. I’m the bloody victim, lass.’

  ‘Of course you are. So what did they take?’

  ‘Mobile, wallet. Everything, really.’

  ‘Did they take your house keys?’

  ‘No. They said that they’d just knock when they wanted my telly and stuff, like.’

  ‘And were you threatened with any weapons, Billy? A knife, or even a gun, maybe?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘So, basically, they just asked you for all your worldly goods, and you just handed them over?’

  ‘You’re not taking this seriously. I’ll make a bloody complaint. You need to get the CCTV, all that.’

  ‘Why would I need CCTV, Billy? You must know every one of those kids. Just give me their names, and we’ll follow it up.’

  ‘Oh, no. Like I told you before, I’m no grass.’

  ‘But you’re here now. Isn’t that grassing?’

  ‘Like I said, you need to nick them yourselves. There’s CCTV all over the estate, I know there is.’

  ‘You’re right, Billy, there is, and it’s mainly because you’re always robbing off your neighbours. But I’m not going to lie to you, marrer. We’ve had a directive from on high, an order, if you like. And what it says is that where someone has been robbed they have to go and find the CCTV themselves. We just don’t have the resources, see.’

  ‘Bollocks. That can’t be right.’

  ‘It’s not right, but it is true, I’m afraid. The long and the short of it is that you’re on your own, mate. And normally that would really piss me off, having to say this to an honest citizen, but in your case I think it’s poetic justice, like I said. And when you’re trying to get to sleep tonight, listening to the sounds from outside or just downstairs, maybe, I want you to think on about that. Can you do that for me, Billy
?’

  ‘You’re a cold hearted bitch, Pepper.’

  ‘Don’t call me Pepper, Billy. It’s still DS Wilson to you.’

  ‘Why do they call you that anyway? Is it because you’re a pig? Peppa Pig, like.’

  ‘That’s not very likely, now is it? Because my mates, including lots of people here at the station, call me Pepper. And they actually like the Police, what with them all being coppers, like.’

  ‘Aye, well. So you’re not going to do owt then?’

  ‘Actually, I am. But not because of your spot of bother. You see we’ve had quite a few reports concerning that group of kids, and don’t worry, we already know who they are. So what I’m going to do is put one of my keenest young DCs straight on to it. Literally this month, like, and he’s going to have a talk with those lads. And don’t you worry, Billy, he’ll make sure that your name is mentioned. More than once, I expect.’

  ‘Don’t fucking do that. They’ll kill me, you know they will.’

  ‘Don’t talk daft. They won’t kill you. The take-aways will do that soon enough anyway, at this rate. But you’re right, I’m not sympathetic, Billy. Those kids are cockroaches on benefits, and so are you. We haven’t got enough boots to stamp on all of you, not these days, so if they chase you away from your particular dung-heap then that’s just fine with me. I hope I’m making myself clear to you here?’

  ‘You can’t bloody talk to me like that. I’m not a cockroach. Right, who do I complain to?’

  ‘The Acting DI.’

  ‘And who’s that, when he’s at home?’

  ‘Not he, she. And that would be me, Billy.’

  Pepper felt bad asking Adam to baby-sit on a Friday night, but he’d said ‘yes’ quickly enough. She’d already tried Justin, but the band had a gig that night. She didn’t even want to go out, not even slightly, but when the Super had phoned and suggested a drink after work Pepper hadn’t been sure if it was an order or not. She thought that it wasn’t, but she still wasn’t quite certain enough to say no.

  ‘This is nice’, said Mary Clark, when Pepper walked into the wine bar. It was one of the newest in the city, and also the most expensive. Pepper had only been in once before.

  ‘Aye. We’ll see a fair few cons, but no cops’ said Pepper.

  ‘Because the cons have got the money?’

  ‘You’ve looked at the prices then?’

  ‘The same as Leeds, or nearly. Anyway, it’s my shout. How about a bottle of wine?’

  ‘Each?’

  ‘I thought we might start by sharing.’

  Both women smiled, and Pepper sat down on the hard, concrete bench. Maybe padded bar stools were a thing of the past now, too.

  ‘Thanks for coming out’ said Mary, when she returned with a bottle of sauvignon. ‘I don’t want to keep rushing back to Yorkshire every weekend. I need to make friends over here.’

  ‘I’m sure you will.’

  ‘Are you? I’m starting to understand that being a copper is different from other jobs. That’s true, isn’t it?’

  ‘I wouldn’t know, really. I’ve never done anything else. Never wanted to, not really.’

  ‘You joined straight from school?’

  ‘More or less, aye. I worked in a supermarket for a while, after school. The one you came from actually.’

  ‘What was that like?’

  ‘Like being in strip-lit hell. Every day was the same. I bloody hated it.’

  ‘There is a management training scheme. My old boss started on the shop floor, actually.’

  ‘Oh, aye? What was he like?’

  ‘Crap, actually. Mind you, he knew how to drive a fork-lift, I’ll give him that.’

  ‘That must have come in handy.’

  ‘You’d be surprised. All the head office staff had to spend a month on the shop floor when they joined, and one day a month after that. I hated doing it, to begin with.’

  ‘And later on?’

  ‘I hated it more. But at least it gave us an idea of what it’s actually like, at the sharp end.’

  Pepper nodded, and took a cautious sip of her wine. It was very cold, and a bit bland. ‘We could do with doing something like that in the job, like’ she said. ‘But it’ll never happen. Most of our senior managers haven’t been on the street in years, and they’ve got no intention of ever going back. No offence, like.’

  ‘None taken. But we shouldn’t really talk about work, should we?’

  ‘Probably best not. In my experience the only time Superintendents mix with Sergeants outside work is if they’re shagging them, like.’

  Mary laughed.

  ‘Understood. But finish your story. How come you joined the job?’

  ‘Honestly? You’re not taking notes, are you? Because I’ll probably get kicked out if I tell you. It’s not what I said at the interview, anyway.’

  ‘Was it for the uniform, then?’

  ‘Christ, no. When I joined, and we’re going back nearly fifteen years now, it was even worse, if you can believe that. I joined because I really just wanted to get back at the cons, all those low-lifes who ruin everyone’s lives. Their neighbours, their wives, but especially their kids.’

  ‘Isn’t that why everyone joins?’

  ‘I doubt it. I just said what an old PC I was teamed up with told me to say when I did a few months as a Special. It seemed to go down OK. Some old shit about protecting life and property. But how about you? Why did you join the increasingly thin blue line, Mary?’

  ‘You’ll laugh, but my dad was a copper, back in Leeds. A traffic Sergeant, he was.’

  ‘He must be proud of you.’

  ‘I’m sure he would be, but he died eighteen months ago. And that got me thinking, you know, about what I wanted to do with my life.’

  They both took sips from their wine, and Pepper glanced nervously round the room. Perhaps this had been a mistake. ‘We’ve got a fair bit in common, mind’, she said, finally.

  ‘More than the supermarket?’

  ‘Aye. In some ways my dad’s the reason that I’m a copper, too.’

  ‘He was on the job as well? Maybe I’ll meet him at one of those social dos. There seems to be one every bloody week, each even duller than the last.’

  ‘I doubt it. My old man was always very much on the other side of the interview table, as you might say.’

  ‘A villain? Really? What did he do?’

  ‘Nothing glamorous. I wouldn’t have minded so much if he’d been a proper criminal, but it was pathetic stuff. Scrapping over a borrowed tenner, pissing in public, being pissed-up in public. All that low level rubbish.’

  ‘Is he still alive?’

  ‘Aye. But there’s no bloody justice, is there?’

  ‘So you don’t see him?’

  ‘Not often. We fell out, years ago. When I was small he took it all out on my mum, time after bloody time. Eventually she left. But when I was fifteen he came round and had a go at my younger sister, out in the street in front of the house. I don’t remember what it was about now. Sod all, I expect. Anyway, I went out, and I decked him. Then I gave him a kicking. Head, bollocks, the lot.’

  ‘Christ, you beat up a grown man?’

  ‘He was pissed, and I’d been to self-defence classes since I was twelve. I knew they’d come in handy, like, and they bloody well did.’

  ‘Did anyone call the Police?’

  ‘No. A couple of the neighbours came out, mainly to have a laugh at him, like. Eventually an ambo turned up, and someone told them that he’d been hit by a car. They didn’t seem surprised. I’d have never got into the job if I’d been done for it, like.’

  ‘Jesus wept. How the other half lives, eh?’

  ‘I am the other half, Mary. Lots of us are. That’s why we don’t buy any of the shit that the cons come out with when they’re nicked. They’ll never change, and neither should we.’

  They finished the bottle, and Pepper went and bought another. She’d never been a big drinker, and she knew that she needed to be ca
reful. Mary seemed straight enough, but she was a boss. So she’d get the topic away from work, and from anything too personal too.

  ‘So how are you finding Carlisle?’

  ‘You’re local, aren’t you?’

  ‘Born and bred, but don’t worry about that. You say what you think. I won’t smack you with this bottle. Not ’til it’s empty, anyway.’

  Mary laughed.

  ‘It’s too soon to stay. But it seems like a good place to bring up a family. And the Lakes are on your doorstep.’

  ‘You want to keep away from them, Mary. We keep all that for the bloody tourists. We’ve got Wetherspoons and an ATM, like. That’s enough for most of us round here.’

  They talked about where Mary was living, how her mum was managing with her dad gone, and about her nephews and nieces.

  ‘You sound like a fantastic auntie.’

  ‘But I can give them back when I’ve had enough.’

  ‘That’s the best way.’

  ‘You don’t mean that. You’ve got a little boy, haven’t you? The one I met in the hospital.’

  ‘Ben, that’s right. And no, I don’t mean it. In fact, I’d better be getting back home in a bit.’

  ‘You go whenever you need to, Pepper. I mustn’t keep you.’

  ‘I didn’t mean right now. This has been fun. And you’re right. It’s not easy making friends, not in this job.’

  ‘The hours?’

  ‘Shifts don’t help, but I don’t do those now. Unless there’s a big case on I’m a nine-to-fiver these days. No, I suppose it’s the job itself. It just makes you, I don’t know, watchful about people.’

  ‘Do you mean cynical?’

  ‘Aye, I suppose I do.’

  ‘That’s just life, love. I spent fifteen years at that bloody company and by the end of it I didn’t trust a bloody one of them.’

  They both laughed, and Pepper held up her glass in a farewell toast.

  ‘To the cons, the toe-rags and the chancers. May they never get any better at their job, and may we never get any worse at ours.’