by Dan Kavanagh
‘Uh-huh.’
‘It’s true. What does Joe Public think? Joe Public thinks it’s all about smuggling, doesn’t he? He thinks this place is all about sneaking the extra bottle of duty free, or asking to see the receipt for your camera; and then occasionally there’s this great boogie comes hoofing it through the door, and there’s something about him that makes us think, bingo, he’s the one, and he has this big leather cap on his head, and we take it apart, and in the little button on the top we find a diamond, or a tab of L.S.D., or a microdot with the secrets of the atom bomb. That’s what Joe Public thinks, isn’t it? Joe Public’s a bloody muggins.’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘It’s a city, Duffy, it’s a city.’ Willett was settling back and getting launched. ‘It’s as big as Newcastle, and the population changes every day. Think of it like that. So of course you get your smuggling, but that’s only the speciality of the place. You get all your other city crimes as well, and you get your sharper operators because they’re smart enough to see why it’s different from a normal city. It’s different because it’s very rich, because it’s open twenty-four hours of the day, and because lots of the people who are here are only thinking of getting home, and as long as they get home without losing too much, then that’s O.K.
‘There’s the smuggling, sure. Then there’s the thieving. Then there’s the armed robbery. Then there’s the pickpockets, and the forgers, and the pushers, and most of all the fiddlers. There’s so many fiddles, Duffy, you wouldn’t believe. You know what they say … ’
‘About the fresh fruit and veg? I heard it.’
‘Well, that’s one you’ve heard. You’ve probably heard about the cowboys at the cab rank too – three hundred quid to Birmingham and then drop you at the first motorway sign to Brum and let you walk.’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘Do you know the car park one?’ Willett felt competitive, needing to impress Duffy with a really good fiddle.
‘No.’
‘Ah. Car park.’ Willett waved a vague hand in the right direction. ‘Short-stay car parks, long-stay car parks. O.K.?’
‘O.K.’
‘Long-stay park much cheaper, but it’s a bit further away. You have to take the bus to the terminal. Dump your car, leave the keys, fill in a form saying when you’ll be back to collect it, fly off to the sunshine and the senoritas. What happens? Little car-hire firm springs up. No questions asked, and a lot cheaper than your Hertz or your Avis. Who’s going to remember the mileage on his car all the way through a lovely holiday? And if they do, well, you can always turn the clock back, can’t you?’
‘Sounds foolproof. Is it still working?’
‘No, silly cowboys had too many crashes. Got themselves closed down. As far as anyone can tell, of course.’
‘It’s a good fiddle,’ Duffy said admiringly.
‘First-class while it lasted. Pity they made a Horlicks of it.’
Duffy nodded. He knew the feeling; it was common to all branches of law enforcement. After an initial period when you wanted to arrest everyone for everything – when every Troops-Out badge or half-flicked V-sign appeared to be Conduct Liable to Cause a Breach of the Peace – you settled into a realisation that you’d never catch everyone, you’d never clear up everything. You caught quite a lot of people because they were stupid, and you came to despise them for taking up a trade they were so ill-equipped for; you caught quite a lot of people because you were lucky; and you caught quite a lot of people because you worked very hard and wanted very much to catch them. Murderers, child molesters, that sort of thing – you hated them. But there were some crimes and some criminals you couldn’t help admiring, even liking. Crimes which had a lot of thought put into them, which were very well executed, and which hurt nobody – or virtually hurt nobody. You almost didn’t want to catch whoever was doing it because it gave you something close to pleasure: and if they then went and made a Horlicks of it, you felt irritated with them; as if, by letting you catch them, they’d somehow let you down.
‘How do you know who to search?’ It was a question everyone asked Willett sooner or later.
‘Trade secret. No, I’ll tell you. Mixture of science and nose, that’s what it is. And I mean literally nose sometimes. We’ve got one officer here, got a better nose than his dog. True, I swear it. We’ll be going over a cargo with a dog – the dog’s meant to sniff the cannabis, but this mate of mine often gets there first. Tells the dog where to sniff. Dog jumps up and down, wags his tail and gets another steak dinner. Amazing nose.’
‘But would you search me, for instance?’
‘Depends. Sometimes we get tip-offs, of course. Sometimes we take a little peek at the suitcases before they come up on the carousel – that helps us a bit. And we’ll watch you, often from the moment you get off the plane. Not you, necessarily, but some people. And don’t trust any mirror, by the way, don’t trust any mirror.’
‘Doesn’t sound as if you’d stop me.’
‘No, maybe we wouldn’t. But then every officer’s different. If you don’t have any information, then you’re down to your nose. There are two sorts of nose – what I call scientific nose, and what I call random nose. Scientific nose is when you look for guys who are nervous, or haven’t got what feels the right amount of luggage. Sometimes their case might come up first on the carousel – we can arrange these things – but they pretend not to notice it, and then only grab it when about half the other passengers have already taken theirs. Well, you’d turn him over. That’s what I call scientific nose.
‘Now random nose is different for everyone. For instance, I stop everyone with a raincoat slung over their left shoulder. Sounds silly, doesn’t it? But you need some sort of random factor to operate on, if only to keep you on your toes yourself. I know officers who stop people wearing white suits; if you ask them to explain, they say it’s for really deep psychological reasons – they reckon the guy puts on the white suit to make other people think he’s pure and innocent and not trying to get away with something. Of course, often the guy’s got his white suit on because he doesn’t want to get it creased in his suitcase, or thinks it might get nicked, or wants to try and pick up a stewardess. But the officer thinks there’s more to it, or persuades himself that way, when really he’s just using random nose. It varies: some officers stop people who aren’t smiling, or who are smiling, or blond men, or bald men, or men who are with girls the officers fancy. That’s often just to get a longer look at the girl, or it may be jealousy after a hard night on the feet and getting the pip at seeing these swankies jetting in from L.A. I can’t say I blame them.’
‘Do you search the crews?’
‘Of course. That’s rummage – that’s what we call it. I was on rummage last week. We turned them upside down as usual. Didn’t find much – though it’s done to deter as much as to find stuff.’
‘Anyone you can’t search?’
‘Diplomatic bag. Though there are always ways.’
‘Such as?’
Willett smiled.
‘Send in a ferret, of course.’ Duffy should have known better than to expect a straight answer. ‘No, but the short one is, Duffy, like I said before, this is Fiddle City. No one’s above the law, and a hell of a lot of people are below it.’
Duffy didn’t like to speak his next thought, so instead he merely cocked an eyebrow towards his friend.
‘Cheeky sod.’
Duffy recocked his eye.
‘Well since you ask, no, not in my experience. Not here. There was a bit of a rumble down at Gatwick a few years ago – the odd backhander was finding its way through from pilots of an airline we won’t mention. But here? Half of them are Scottish, which is a good start, and I say that as an Arsenal supporter. No. It’s much more than their job’s worth, you’d get a hell of a sentence, and it’d be very hard to pull off. Though sometimes I can see it happening: the haul of a lifetime – you might just be tempted. And if anyone was tempted, I’d blame Mrs Thatcher. No, really, I wou
ld.’
‘I always thought you were a Tory.’
‘Am. Voted for the lady. Don’t tell the wife,’ Willett looked conspiratorial, ‘but I fancy her a bit. All those nicely tailored suits. I’d let her through any day: she could come up my green channel and no questions asked. But – the lady did a terrible thing: she stopped the reward system. I’m sure it wasn’t Mrs T. herself, personally; but the next time the little civil servant who thought it was a good idea comes through here, he’s going to get the linings taken out of his suits and no mistake.’
‘You voting Tory again next time?’
‘Take more than that, Duffy. But you know, they talk about incentives – what incentive have we got now? Why do they stop anything that works, Duffy?’
‘That’s not my sort of question.’ They stood up together, and Duffy shook Willett’s hand. ‘I’ll maybe come and see you again in a week or two.’
‘Any time. Who knows, I may be round your shed for a rummage before you can say Jack Robinson.’
‘Well, you don’t know me if you do.’
‘Sure. Watch out for illegal golf clubs, Duffy. They’re sort of long and thin and made of metal and come in bags.’
‘I’ll keep my eyes skinned.’
‘Keep them skinned for the cowboys as well. I mean that. The cowboys round here aren’t any nicer than the cowboys anywhere else. Very short on morals, some of them.’
‘Got you.’
And Duffy headed off through the raucous bazaar of this strange imperial city.
Next day, before leaving for work, he rang Carol and asked her round that evening. She said she couldn’t make it; as always, the news gave him a stab. He didn’t ask; she didn’t explain; that was the deal. At one time she used to tell him when she was going to do things she knew he wouldn’t mind about – go to the pictures with a fellow-W.P.C.; or visit her aunt – but this only made him think that when she didn’t explain she must be going to the Ritz with Paul Newman, or making half a dozen pornographic films that evening. So they went back to the original system of her not saying, and his not asking. She’d come the following night instead.
He guessed his clothes for Hendrick Freight: a denim jacket which looked as if it were made from separate patches but wasn’t (Duffy felt cheated when Carol had pointed out that it was done with false seaming); his oldest jeans, with authentic patches on the knees; desert boots. That should do it.
As he climbed into his van he reflected yet again how smart he’d been not to have it plastered with business slogans saying DUFFY SECURITY and pictures of red skulls and crossbones or whatever. Some firms worked like that: high visibility, they called it. He did, actually, have a board with DUFFY SECURITY painted on it: there were rubber suckers on the back and it could be stuck to the side of the van if he was going anywhere on official business. He’d originally had two such signs, one for each side of the van, but he lost one on a trip to Barking. He must have been producing a poor quality of spit that day.
So: his clothes were O.K., the van was O.K. (that’s to say, it had started), the interview was rigged and so presumably would be O.K. (Hendrick had said the best story for Mrs Boseley would be that Duffy had done a lot of odd jobs around his house for him and was now looking for something permanent). He was driving along the M4 in the opposite direction to most of the commuter traffic, so that was O.K. The only thing which wasn’t O.K. was that he was going to have to keep tracking back to Heathrow every day and listen to the aircraft whining in pain, and watch them taking off at a ludicrously untenable angle, and it would be just his luck if one of them decided to stall into the freight area during the next few days.
His was a rational unease. If you worked around airports and didn’t fret, you were the odd one, Duffy had long ago decided. Across to his left, a long slow morning line of jumbos was queuing up to land, sticking parallel to the M4. (It was obviously the only way they knew how to navigate. ‘Well, personally, I take the A205 through Mortlake … ’ ‘Oh, I’m much more of a North Circular man myself … ’ That was all the pilots ever talked about.) The planes kept a mile astern of one another, which was a criminally inadequate distance, as even Duffy could see. And they were flying so slowly – barely over-taking him. It was probably some competition to see who could go the slowest without stalling.
Look at it this way, Duffy told himself. The sooner you find out who’s nicking Hendrick’s stuff, the sooner you can stop worrying about a DC-10 turning into a Stuka, or about a cubic yard of frozen pee landing on your head from 20,000 feet. Fair enough. He turned off the M4 at Junction Three, ducked his head automatically as he cut across the flight path of the jumbos, and skirted the perimeter of the airport.
Freight was handled on the south side of Heathrow. Inside the fence was the bonded area: there, the sheds belonged to individual airlines, who were responsible for cargo until it had cleared customs. Then they handed it either direct to the importer, or to one of the gaggle of freight agents just outside the fence.
Hendrick Freight stood in one of the less fashionable areas of this subsidiary cargo market. Smarter forwarding agents were clustered under one roof in a modern shed close to the road. The security man on the gate let Duffy through after a brief phone call, and directed him to Hendrick Freight. It was a high, airy shed – Duffy hoped the job didn’t drag on until the winter – with side walls of yellow-painted breeze-block and an arching, corrugated tin roof. Bundles of goods lay on rust-coloured, triple-tiered racks. Large red numbers hung above each storage bay.
As he stood there a yellow fork-lift truck suddenly whined past and nearly ankle-tapped him with one of its two flat metal prongs. Better watch out, thought Duffy. Collect one of those in the leg and you’ll be catching up on a lot of reading before you know where you are. He began to walk slowly up the length of the shed. Neolithic strip lighting lurked in the roof, and had to be helped out by the occasional bare, hanging bulb. Weighing machines, old from age rather than use, stood here and there. Though it was a warm, dry day, the shed felt damp.
He passed the fork-lift truck, which was now fussing with some hessian-wrapped bundles, and reached a raised glass office at the far end of the shed. Mrs Boseley sat here. She didn’t really need the office to be raised: she seemed to be looking down on everyone already. She was about forty, with the sort of face people call handsome. This might have been expected to appeal to Duffy, but it very much didn’t: he liked women small and dark and friendly, like Carol, not high-boned and aloof and eight-ninths hidden beneath the surface. Her blonde hair was scraped back off her face and pinned at the nape of her neck with an ivory comb. She examined Duffy’s cards as if he had offered her an expired Libyan passport. Duffy determined to be as polite to her as he could possibly manage. He didn’t find it easy.
‘Worked for Mr Hendrick long, have you?’ she began.
‘A bit. Off and on.’
‘Enjoyed it, did you?’
‘All right.’
‘Nice wife Mr Hendrick has.’
Duffy didn’t know whether that was a question or a statement. He didn’t even know if Hendrick had a wife. He decided to treat it as a statement and let it go.
‘And he tells me you’ve done all sorts of odd jobs for him.’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘What sort of things?’
‘This and that … Lifting things.’ Duffy vaguely thought this must be a qualification for working here. At the same time, he felt pissed off that he was being cross-examined: Hendrick had assured him the interview would be a formality. Maybe the woman was only keeping him in here so that the others wouldn’t get suspicious of him.
‘Mow the lawn?’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘You’ve mowed the lawn for Mr Hendrick, for instance?’
‘Sometimes.’
Why, Mrs Boseley thought, didn’t the fellow ever say yes? But Duffy never said Yes; he either nodded, or went Uh-huh, or said All right. Carol thought that you could ask Duffy to marry you and he’d h
alf look away, nod and say, All right. This was only a guess. She had asked once, and he’d half looked away, gone quiet, and then said, ‘No’.
‘Well, I can’t say we’ve exactly established your qualifications for the job, but we do want someone in a hurry, and if Mr Hendrick recommends you then I suppose that’s the end of the matter.’ She looked up and gazed at Duffy expressionlessly for a few seconds. He thought it was his turn to speak.
‘Thank you very much, Mrs Boseley.’
‘Hmm. I should say one thing to you though. The manner of your appointment is – how shall I put it – just a trifle irregular.’
‘Uh-huh.’ (She didn’t know the half of it.)
‘Normally what happens in such circumstances is that the men who work here might be expected to suggest someone: one of their friends, for instance. These are hard times, you know, and everyone knows someone who’s out of a job.’
‘I see.’
‘I’m glad you do. Then you won’t be surprised if you encounter a little, how shall I put it, a little hostility at first?’
‘It doesn’t bother me.’
‘I hope it doesn’t.’ She put her head outside her glass cage and shouted at someone Duffy couldn’t see.
‘Tan. Tan, ask Gleeson to come up, will you?’
They sat in silence until the door opened and a muscularly plump man in a dark blue boiler suit came in; he had dark hair and mutton-chop whiskers. He looked without acknowledgement at Duffy before turning to the desk.
‘Mrs Boseley?’
‘Gleeson, this is Duffy, who as I told you is joining us. Make him comfortable, show him around, tell him what to do, will you?’
Gleeson nodded and left the room. Duffy glanced at Mrs Boseley but only met the top of her head as it bent over some invoices. He followed Gleeson out into the body of the cargo shed. As soon as he had caught up, Gleeson marched him across to a row of lockers and tapped the only one with a key in the door.
‘Yours. Overalls. In you get.’
‘I’m not that small,’ said Duffy, but Gleeson declined to smile. Duffy opened the locker and saw a pair of overalls. He also saw a Page Three girl pasted inside the door and a miniature tiger dangling on a string.
