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6
Investigating the eerie surrounds of the Ellman Superstore at night gave Special Constable Viv Smith a weird case of the ‘creeps’, and having Special Constable Freddy Calder at her side was worse than Rosemary’s Baby: what loony Americans would call ‘a horror show’. Angular slabs of concrete cast deep shadows and what few sources of light were within reach merely served to spread the shadows out longer.
Slower and slower they walked, until Viv stopped. Freddy looked at her with questioning eyes, although not a sound emerged from his throat. She prayed there wouldn’t be another peep out of him, as she took a cigarette out of her shoulder bag.
‘Don’t say another word,’ Viv warned him in a low, cemetery whisper. ‘I said I’d give them up.’
The cigarette was in her mouth, and she was just about to light up, when a squeaky noise pierced the night air. She froze like a deer, although she might just as well have shrieked and jumped over the moon. Freddy also appeared to have been instantaneously transformed into a pillar of salt.
Slowly she turned, her antennae searching the horizon for the direction of the squeaking noise, which seemed to become louder every second, as if coming toward them from the shadows.
Suddenly one of the shadows was moving! And while it was moving closer, it was growing larger and the squeaking noise louder and louder.
The moving shadow expanded to fill an entire wall, appearing to be a giant creature of some sort inexorably screeching toward them. The cigarette fell out of Viv’s mouth, yet she wasn’t at all sure she could manage a scream.
Something appeared at the bottom of the wall, beneath and much smaller than the shadow: something that was causing the shadow.
It was a supermarket trolley with a young child inside, being pushed by another child.
Quickly the Specials headed for the trolley, trying not to frighten the children the same way that they had been spooked.
The children immediately saw them and waited where they were. Freddy got to them first.
‘Whoa there, stranger,’ he soothed with a friendly smile, almost in one of his character voice impersonations.
Pushing the trolley was a young boy, not more than six years old. In the trolley was a little girl even younger. The two looked up with fear, uncertainty and suspicion mixed into their expressions of bewilderment. Viv’s heart went out to them.
‘Hullo,’ she said gently. ‘What are you two doing here?’
The children said nothing.
‘Been shopping then?’ Freddy inquired.
The boy laughed, unable to repress his reaction. ‘Silly. It’s closed,’ he scoffed.
Another laugh from the boy even made the little girl smile. God bless Freddy, he really did have a talent after all.
‘How did you get here?’ said Viv, trying to pry some basic information out of them.
The children still said nothing. Perhaps she was intimidating them with her direct inquiries.
‘You haven’t done much shopping,’ Freddy remarked.
‘No. Auntie’s shopping,’ the boy responded.
‘Your auntie?’ Viv asked him.
Again he didn’t answer her. ‘Charming,’ she muttered to Freddy. ‘They must think I’m the Witch of the West.’
The little boy looked at Freddy with imploring eyes. ‘We’re waiting for her. We’re waiting for Auntie.’
The looks on their faces made Viv thank heaven she had taken the trouble to come to the Ellman Superstore on this dark and lonely night.
There was important, urgent work to be done, as fast and efficiently – and delicately – as they could.
7
Suddenly an alarm was screaming in the night, and would keep on screaming until answered.
Someone who didn’t belong there had tripped an alarm at Byron-Newman, a prominent engineering works that presented formidable barriers to any would-be intruder, although the alarm obviously indicated that this someone had trespassed beyond the point of no return.
Driving the panda, Toby Armstrong responded instinctively to the alarm with a hard jerk on the wheel, several seconds before they were told the direction over the radio.
‘We’re on our way,’ Anjali replied before the voice at the other end could finish a sentence.
The sound of the alarm grew steadily louder as they approached Byron-Newman Ltd. The panda screeched to a halt. Toby half-expected to see a drawbridge and moat guarding the fortress, but, alas, no such luck. This was the real world; nobility was ancient history. Menace was immediate, somewhere ahead in the dark, where that someone was hiding.
Constables Toby Armstrong and Special Constable Anjali Shah hit the ground running.
Police Sergeant McAllister was replacing the telephone as Viv Smith, along with her section officer, Bob Loach, waited for the report on the immediate disposition of the two lost children.
McAllister’s frown didn’t change. ‘Social Services will send someone as soon as possible.’
His gaze focused on Viv like a zoom lens in a movie camera.
‘Until they do, Bonnie and Clyde here’ll need looking after.’
The sergeant was plainly referring to the wandering waifs, yet Viv also gathered that McAllister was expecting her to do something about it. She bristled.
‘Why look at me?’ As if she didn’t know.
McAllister expressed exasperation by moving a centimetre closer, raising his left eyebrow a millimetre and lowering his voice.
‘Because you’re a woman, for pity’s sake.’
Enlightened Man, circa the Stone Age.
‘It might come as a surprise to you, Sergeant, but not all women come with a built-in maternal expertise of how to deal with children.’
The laughter down the corridor distracted her, and unexpectedly served as a reminder that she was getting much too serious. Her rising blood pressure surely needed to be cooled.
Viv glanced at the distraction, then looked again. The laughter was coming from the high-pitched voices of three children: the little girl on one side, the older little boy on the other and Special Constable Freddy Calder in the middle.
Actually there was a fourth party at the party: Freddy’s glove-puppet, Foxy, who was playing with a couple of coins. The two children were talking to Foxy as if he were more alive than Freddy – a frightening thought. Indeed it was Foxy who was showing them the coin tricks: Freddy was merely his quick-fingered assistant.
Each child was enthralled with Freddy’s antics. Viv looked over at Loach and Sergeant McAllister. She caught them smiling, and they caught her looking, and for a brief moment, they shared a quiet, knowing laugh among themselves.
Their amusement was interrupted by a PC rushing in with an urgent message written all over his face, yet his uniform suggesting he’d been in the middle of a poll tax demo.
‘We’ve got Big Jess in the hoolivan outside!’
The PC’s announcement brought Sergeant McAllister to attention. Viv was impressed. Who was this Big Jess all of a sudden?
‘Drunk?’ McAllister asked routinely.
‘As a cock-eyed owl, Sarge,’ the PC responded in the same old routine.
McAllister turned to Viv and Loach with a blunt request.
‘Give ’em a hand, will you?’ he asked with an edge of weariness in his voice. ‘They’ve got the Queen of the Night – Mrs Godzilla – out there.’
Apparently Loach was just as unaware of this notorious character as Viv was.
‘Who’s Big Jess?’
‘You don’t know?’ McAllister’s expression turned from incredulity to a nasty, knowing smile. ‘Then you’ve a nice surprise coming, laddie.’
A moment before Toby got there, Anjali had reached the elderly security guard outside the Byron-Newman building and quickly elicited the information they needed.
‘The noise came from round the back,’ Anjali briefed Toby.
‘Wait here,’ Toby told the old guard. ‘We should have some back-up pretty soon. Okay?’
Toby didn’t wait for the guard’s answer before signalling Anjali that they proceed with their own investigation, and they set off in hot pursuit around the corner of the building.
It wasn’t long until the pair raced into an area crowded with an obstacle course of tall waste-bins. On the other side of the congested area they spotted two figures who suddenly bolted from the deep shadows and made a run for the perimeter fence.
In the semi-darkness, the suspects appeared to be two boys or young men.
Caught on the wrong side of the obstacle course, Toby and Anjali tried to hurry through the clutter of bins that were slowing them down and facilitating the escape of the fugitives.
Being afraid didn’t paralyze Anjali; fear made her run faster. She had never been able to overcome her inner panic in the face of danger, and she had no idea what would happen if she caught up with these bandits, or quite what she would do if they suddenly turned to attack her. Rather, she was driven by a sense of urgency, a blind compulsion to force her legs to keep churning. She made herself do what she instinctively knew had to be done, suppressing any thought of the possible consequences.
As Toby and Anjali got closer, the young men were legging it to the high fence. One was clearly older than the other, and both appeared to be of Asian extraction. An inopportune thought flashed through Toby’s mind, wondering what Anjali’s reaction to them might be.
The fugitives started to claw their way up the perimeter fence. The older one was lugging a heavy metal box and trying to heave it over the top. Yet, despite being weighed down by the box, the older lad was making better progress, and had nearly reached his goal.
Unable to gain secure toeholds, the younger boy was panicking. Desperate, he grabbed ahold of the older one’s jeans, trying to keep his grip, his only chance to escape again to freedom. The older fugitive was almost over the fence, and the outcome seemed to be in doubt: whether the older one would shake loose and boost himself over the top or the younger one would drag them both down.
Sensing his dilemma, the older one kicked out at the younger boy below, who lost his balance and fell to the ground, landing awkwardly with an anguished cry just as Anjali reached him.
She looked through the mesh of the fence as the older one slithered down the other side, tightened his grip on the metal box and vanished into the darkness beyond.
A moment later Toby caught up with Anjali. They heard a motorbike revving hard on the other side of the perimeter fence, ready for the getaway.
‘He’s gone,’ Toby stated, accepting the obvious and resigning himself to capturing only one of the pair.
They turned to the younger boy trapped at their feet. Their prisoner was obviously in considerable pain.
‘I think his leg’s busted,’ Toby surmised from the queer angle of the boy’s lower left limb. The kid couldn’t be more than 14 or 15 years old, he thought, shaking his head.
He unclipped his radio, as Anjali tended to the boy. Looking up at her, the kid was squeezing his eyes, wincing in pain.
‘Hold on, lad. The ambulance is on its way,’ Toby said.
There was a hint of recognition in Anjali’s gaze at the lad.
‘D’you know him?’
‘He’s Raj Patel. I know his family.’
Unsure of quite what to do with this bit of information, Toby asked the next logical question.
‘What about the other one?’
‘I don’t know him,’ Anjali acknowledged, looking out through the fence. Her eyes narrowed, without looking back at Toby, yet still peering into the black hole into which the other fugitive had disappeared.
‘But I’ll recognize him the next time.’
8
It took a superhuman effort for Andy McAllister, Bob Loach, Viv Smith, two PC’s and the arresting officer to force the struggling mass of a miserable prostitute by the name of Big Jess into a nearby cell.
While the weird wrestling continued, suddenly Loach let out a yell of intense pain. Big Jess had Loach’s thumb between her teeth as if she were chomping on a sausage.
Loach made a fist with his other hand and threw it into the exposed face of Big Jess.
The impact moved her entire head away from Loach’s thumb, and she slumped to the floor. The others managed to get a firm grasp on the mass of flesh, raise her off the hard floor and dump her on the bunk-bed in the cell with a great sigh of relief. Big Jess just snored and snuffled, no longer conscious of a world awake and outside her pleasant dreams.
In the meantime, Loach was examining his wounded extremity.
McAllister made a sympathetic cluck with his tongue. ‘I suppose I’d better make a report that the offender suffered an injury during the struggle.’
Loach displayed the bloody stump of his thumb. ‘She was going to bite it off!’
Sergeant McAllister restrained himself from snickering. ‘Don’t worry, laddie. That goes in the report as well. G.B.H.T.T.’
There was an inquisitive look from Loach.
‘Grievous Bodily Harm To a Thumb.’ He allowed his diagnosis time to register in Loach’s brain. ‘And get it checked.’
Then McAllister turned to the arresting officer. ‘Get the surgeon to check her.’ Truth be known, he was more concerned with Loach’s health than hers. Big Jess was the Frank Tyson of the prostitute world.
At the Byron-Newman engineering works, there was now an ambulance as well as three other patrol cars, and another vehicle belonging to the manager of the works. All of a sudden the scene had become as busy as it might be in the middle of the day.
Anjali Shah was looking down compassionately at young Raj Patel lying on the stretcher, waiting to be taken to the hospital to get some attention for his leg. He was visibly trying to contain his fear.
‘Who was the one who did this to you, Raj? What’s his name?’ She was making every effort to relate to him, not as a uniformed officer of the law but rather as a concerned human being from a similar background.
Nonetheless, he gritted his teeth and shook his head defiantly.
There was nothing left to be said for now. Anjali and Toby watched the young man being placed carefully into the ambulance, as they were joined by the manager of the engineering works.
‘Another hero,’ Toby muttered.
The manager piped up in reply. ‘If there was any justice, he should’ve broken his neck.’
Toby noticed Anjali’s reaction.
‘Bit over the top, don’t you think, sir?’ Toby gently chided him. ‘I mean – they missed the money box. And what they stole was a bit of machinery, wasn’t it?’ Of course the manager was upset, but it was time to bring his anxieties back to earth.
‘A very expensive drilling bit, officer,’ the manager explained in a patronizing tone. ‘Only about thirty-five thousand quid. Not that it makes much difference. Fat chance we’ll ever hear of it again …’
The next remark the manager aimed toward Anjali. ‘… especially since ethnics are involved.’
After staring her down, the manager was about to turn away when Anjali spoke.
‘Excuse me, sir. Will you let us try to get your property back before you press charges?’
The manager was immediately suspicious.
‘Why? You know something I don’t?’
Anjali’s response was neither timid nor equivocal. ‘I know one of the offenders. After all, I’m an ethnic myself.’ She wasn’t mincing her words, Toby noted. ‘At least let me make enquiries.’
The last comment startled Toby. The manager gave her a lingering look, which gradually dwindled into a knowing smile.
‘Why not? The head accountant won’t be back for a couple o’ days.’ His smile turned up at one corner, the equivalent of a wink at Anjali, and he moved away.
Toby waited for the manager to get out of earshot before lashing into Special Constable Shah.
‘What the hell are you doing?’ he berated her. ‘You can’t make deals!’ The request should have come from Toby, if anyone.
Anjali made no attempt to contradict him. ‘I’m sorry. I had no right to do that.’ Yet this time she did equivocate. ‘But surely it’s just as important to contain crime.’
Her statement implied a question, although Toby was sure she knew the answer as well as he did. ‘That’s not what worries me.’
He had to confront her with the larger question, the underlying issue, although he was almost sure to be misunderstood. He tried to show his concern, rather than his own attitude toward those of Asian extraction.
‘Aren’t you identifying too closely with your own kind?’
The look in her eyes was the same as she had given the manager of the engineering works.
9
The view of Birmingham from the expansive windows of the ‘Pub on 4th’ – the purpose-built social club on the top floor of the Division ‘S’ headquarters – is transcendent and serene, far from the madding crowd below: one of the few material benefits of volunteering for public service as a Special. Restricted to Police, Specials and their guests, it allowed them to relax from the pressures and travails of their work and meet socially in a secure, private environment with all the comforts of home, including a bar, TV area and snooker room. Yet besides its exclusive, even privileged company the Pub on 4th was the same as any other perhaps, preferable only in its panoramic views and family atmosphere.
Tonight the pub was quite full and alive with shop talk and laughter. Not in the mood, Toby was sitting at a table with Anjali, the centre of attention, surrounded by young bucks, Specials and PC’s alike. Somewhat dispirited, he was just finishing his orange juice and getting up to leave.
‘Ah! Young love,’ one of the Specials remarked, obviously referring to Toby. ‘Bed calls.’
It wasn’t worth a sassy rejoinder, so instead Toby flicked his fingers at the guy’s head, though he missed by a long shot. He mouthed ‘goodnight’ and ‘see you’ to the faces around the table. Finally his gaze stopped, and stayed, on Anjali. He looked at her for what seemed like an eternity without turning away; yet she returned his stare, challenging him with her eyes, unflinching. Beginning to wonder if the others were watching them, Toby eventually decided it was time to leave.
On his way out, Toby watched Viv Smith and Sandra Gibson at another table engaged in serious discussion. Sandra was the Mother of all Midland Specials, the administrative secretary who knew, filed, remembered and took care of all the Specials in the Birmingham area. Toby would have liked to have stopped and say hello, but Viv was immersed in the conversation in a manner that suggested any interruption would not be welcome, so he decided to amble on by, acknowledging Sandra with a quick wave and smile.
Viv took the occasion of Sandra’s momentary distraction to knock back the rest of her vodka and orange. It wasn’t her first. When Sandra returned to their conversation, Viv was ready to continue her diatribe. ‘What really gets up my nose is what kind of a human being could leave kids wandering around a supermarket?’
Sandra nodded and pulled a quizzical face in agreement. Before Viv could continue her litany of complaints about the parentage of the lost children, Bob Loach wandered over to their table showing off the red-and-white badge of courage: his bandaged thumb.
Immediately Loach began to entertain the other PCs sitting at the table with Viv and Sandra. Although they had ceased following or even listening to Viv, they interrupted any semblance of civilized conversation by raising their glasses, voices and laughter in toasts to the valiant Loach. ‘Why didn’t you get Big Jess to kiss it better?’ asked one wag.
‘Been sucking your thumb, Bob?’ simultaneously suggested one of the others.
Loach smiled sourly and silently pleaded with Sandra for some sympathy. But Viv was having none of his interruptions.
‘Now don’t go giving Sandra a hard time with your problems, Bob Loach. She’s off-duty. Having a quiet drink,’ And busy with my problems at present, Viv wanted to add. ‘She’s not interested in discussing compensation tonight.’
The disappointment on his face was that of a disheartened little boy which, as ever, Sandra didn’t have the constitution to resist.
‘What happened?’ she asked innocently, at the same time automatically removing a secretarial pad and pencil from her shoulder bag.
Viv decided that the only way to cut this short was to speak up first. ‘A lady of the night called Big Jess bit it. I’d say Loach got off lightly.’
Loach ignored Viv and concentrated on Sandra. ‘I suppose it’ll mean a court appearance,’ he sighed. ‘As if I didn’t have enough on my plate.’
Just feeling sorry for himself, Viv reflected. ‘He’s a lot on his mind, has our Section Officer,’ she cracked.
Unfortunately Loach took the opportunity to venture off on one of his pet peeves. ‘Damned right. I’ve been Acting SDO for about three months. And doing all skiver SDO Barker’s paper work …’
Viv tried to head him off at the pass. ‘Loach …’
But it was already too late. ‘Don’t get me wrong. I don’t mind doing the job. But how long am I supposed to act as an Acting?’ Now that he was off and running, there would be virtually no stopping him. ‘I wouldn’t care, if I got a word of thank-you from our invisible SDO for the time I’m putting in.’
Loach’s tirade against SDO Barker was having an unintended effect on Sandra, although he took no notice of the time-bomb he could be about to ignite.
‘Change the channel, will you?’ Viv implored, though her voice probably revealed her sense of futility.
As expected, Loach barely paused to catch his breath before running on again. ‘Why can’t the sod phone and say: “Thank you, Bob.” It’s not much.’
Loach seemed completely oblivious to the devastating effect the lambasting of his immediate superior, Sub-Divisional Officer Rob Barker, was having on Administrative Secretary Sandra Gibson. Obviously he didn’t realize the connection.
‘If you want my opinion,’ Loach offered, although no one had solicited his views, ‘he’s got his leg over some bird, or maybe broken it getting off.’
That did it. Without a word, her face set in a bleak expression, Sandra got up and walked out.
Loach was dumbfounded, the puzzled look on his face asking Viv: What’s that all about?
‘You really are a daft egg,’ Viv remonstrated.
‘What are you on about?’
‘Rob Barker this, Rob Barker that. You’re as sensitive as a Harpic.’
‘I’m only telling it the way I see it,’ Loach tried to rationalize self-defensively.
Viv wasn’t letting him off the hook. ‘Well, I’ll be glad to tell Rob Barker the next time I see him.’
‘Fine. Do that,’ Loach concluded. To hell with the gent. But then he started to replay her comment and reconsider what it meant.
‘What d’you mean “next time?”’ he inquired suspiciously. ‘When did you see him?’
Abruptly Viv corrected her course, becoming a bit more evasive in her tone. ‘I’ve seen him a couple o’ times in the last week.’
Loach was surprised by her answer. ‘Where?’
‘Where I work,’ Viv replied: ‘The Bromsgrove.’
A frown settled on Loach’s brow. ‘The Building Society? What for? A mortgage?’
The conversation was leading in the wrong direction, but there wasn’t much Viv could do about it.
‘No. He’s got a mortgage already. I’m not sure, but I think he was talking to the manager about selling … selling his house, that is.’
Luckily at that moment Viv spotted Freddy Calder standing in the doorway. Smiling, she turned to Bob Loach to cut off his line of inquiry.
‘Oh, oh! There’s Freddy. Gotta go.’
Loach remained in some confusion as to what was going on while Freddy motioned Viv to join him, bringing Loach back to the present. ‘That reminds me …’
As Viv got up, Loach joined her, and together they crossed the room to meet Freddy.
‘The woman from social’s here,’ Freddy informed her. ‘A Miss Brownlow. I thought you might want to meet her.’ Apparently, Freddy was happily impressed with Miss Brownlow. ‘She’s a smashing girl. And the kids like her …’
Freddy turned to leave with Viv to meet Miss Brownlow. Loach made a weak waggle with his hand in an attempt to stop him, then waved both of them away. No use trying to drag Viv back for further questioning at present.
Surveying the crowded Pub on 4th last time, Loach noticed someone else he wanted to see . Weaving his way through the maze of people and chairs, he arrived at Anjali Shah’s table as she, too, was trying to extricate herself and say her goodbyes. But the other Specials and PC’s at her table were teasing her unmercifully and refusing to let her go.
‘You want a lift home, Anjali?’ suggested one with a sly smirk.
‘I go past your way,’ another mock-chivalrous Special chimed in.
‘Forget it, he’s only got a motorbike,’ scoffed the latter’s partner.
Still another pseudo-knight stepped into the fray: ‘If Anjali’s going with anyone, it’s with me.’
His challenge was met by a chorus of birdsong from the fellow rivals for Anjali’s company.
‘You can all sit down,’ she ordered them, a trace of a smile on her lips. ‘The man who’s taking me home is …’
She kept them panting, awaiting the maiden’s fair choice.
‘… the nice man who drives the 44 bus.’
A series of muted boos greeted her announcement. Anjali left the table laughing, passing Bob Loach on her way out.
‘If you want to change your mind …?’ Loach offered politely, not teasing her any more.
Anjali simply smiled shyly and walked by with her head lowered to avoid his eyes.
Shaking his own head, Loach watched her departure, then joined her former suitors at the table.
‘Well, George?’ queried the first one: ‘You blew out there.’
‘You want me to really try?’ responded the PC named George. ‘Show me the colour of your money.’
One of them turned to Loach. ‘What d’you think, Bob?’
‘What do I think what?’ he countered.
‘Has she got a heavy boyfriend, or what?
‘Nah!’ his partner scoffed again. ‘Maybe she’s cheesed off giving massage all day.’
The others laughed at the lewd suggestion, but Loach turned on them sourly.
‘Only dipsticks like you would make an NHS physio sound like a nymphomaniac,’ he lectured them.
But his sobriety only spurred the others to lower depths.
‘Hey!’ one pseudo-knight interrupted as an idea popped into his head: ‘Did someone mention my hobby?’
