Die Happy (2 page)

Lambert affected to look at his notes again, though he knew there was nothing there with which to pressurize this small-time scum. He shook his head sadly. ‘Dealing in class A drugs, Alfie. Offering a choice of heroin and crack and methamphetamine. Doesn't look good to me.'

‘I only sold the horse. And a little crack, just for recreational use.'

‘Even offered Rohypnol, our man says – at what he considered a grossly inflated price.'

The date-rape drug, the pills most in demand in the squalid twenty-first century society where men like Turner made their livings. ‘It ain't bloody fair, coppers coming in filthy shirts and jeans to look for the likes of me.'

‘Whereas what you do is entirely fair, I suppose, Alfie.' Lambert's tone was suddenly harsher and less laid back. ‘Seen what happens to the people you sell these substances to, have you, Alfie? Seen what they do to get the money to pay the likes of you, once you have them hooked?'

Turner shrank back on his seat as if physically threatened. ‘It's their own choice, Mr Lambert. No one makes 'em come to me.'

‘I can take you to the morgue in Gloucester, if you like, to show you how your customers finish life.'

‘It's a free country. It's their own choice.' But Turner would not look at his adversaries as he muttered the clichés.

‘Sergeant Hook's right, you know. Third time in court for dealing. You'll go down this time. And probably a good thing too. One less rat in the sewer.' He didn't trouble to disguise his distaste for the man and what he represented.

‘It's a minor offence. I want a brief.'

‘Oh, I'd go further than that. I'd say you need a brief, Alfie. And you shall have one, as soon as we decide upon formal charges. At present you're just a member of the public helping us with our enquiries.' He allowed himself a sour smile at that thought, and Hook beside him responded with a broader one of his own.

Bert sensed that this was the moment to take over. ‘You heard Chief Superintendent Lambert say that your only chance of avoiding a hefty spell in clink was to cooperate fully with us. I can't say that I agree with such leniency, but he is my senior officer. So I have to suggest to you that your only chance this morning is to offer us useful information. We might then be able to enter a plea for leniency on your behalf.'

‘But I don't know nuffing.'

‘Pity, that. Looks like you're going down then, Mr Turner. Still, consider it from our point of view; one less rat rooting about in the sewer, as Mr Lambert says.'

‘What is it yer want?'

Lambert leaned forward. ‘Names, Alfie. Names from higher up the organization. Names that would show you're helping us with our enquiries. I'm sure that your brief when he arrives would agree that a little information would be the only means by which you might help yourself.'

Except that his lawyer would probably be retained by the drug organization itself, which would certainly forbid any such revelations. Turner said hopelessly, ‘I don't know nuffing. I'm small time, Mr Lambert. They don't tell me nuffing.'

It was almost certainly true. They eventually wrung two names from him, names of suppliers on the next rung of the hierarchy. Lambert was pretty sure that the specialist Drugs Squad was aware of both of them, but equally sure now that Turner had nothing more to offer. They took the name of his brief and returned him to his cell, with the assurance that charges would be proffered within the hour.

Lambert reviewed a trying morning, looked at the paperwork which had mounted inexorably on his desk during his absence, and said glumly to Bert Hook, ‘Makes you look forward to retirement and cultivating your roses, a day like this does.' At that moment, he almost believed himself.

He went home for lunch, which he wasn't often able to do, and walked round the very garden he had mentioned, noting the crocus and the budding daffodils and rejoicing that another spring was at hand. He switched on the television, watched amateurs and their expert guides trying to make purchases at an antiques fair for two minutes, picked up the sports section of
The
Times
, read of the latest demands of a multi-millionaire soccer player, uttered words even the most liberal editor could never have printed, and flung the newspaper petulantly aside.

His wife observed all of this surreptitiously, keeping the kitchen door ajar whilst she engaged herself in the politically highly incorrect processes of keeping her man happy. Thirty years of marriage to a policeman as he moved through the ranks to his present eminence had taught Christine Lambert many things. One of them was that men, whatever their professional successes and the accolades heaped upon them, are essentially children in the home.

This can be trying at times, even infuriating. But it is also a factor which that can be turned to a resourceful wife's advantage. It is much better to use this weakness than to fight it. Such a sentiment was a triumph of pragmatism over feminism, Christine reflected, but it made domestic control and even domestic harmony much more attainable. She only taught part-time now, after a serious illness a year or two back, but she had many years' experience of successful teaching, and she knew how to deal with children.

Cheese on toast, with slices of small, tasty cherry tomatoes blended into its amber surface. That had been John's favourite lunchtime snack throughout their marriage and he didn't change his opinions lightly. She served it to him not at the table but in his favourite armchair, a sure sign of indulgence. He ate with slow relish, his mood improving imperceptibly with each measured movement of his jaws. When she heard him switch off the television after the headlines of the one o'clock news, Christine brought her own plate in and sat down opposite him.

John Lambert glanced at her, feeling a sudden shaft of tenderness as he saw the lines in her still attractive face. As a young CID officer working round the clock and building a career, he had shut this woman out of his professional life, forcing her away from him, forcing her to retreat into her own job and the progress of her two young daughters. It had almost cost him the marriage that most of his younger colleagues now saw as rock-solid and a model for others. Those days were long gone, though on some days he still had to force himself to reveal anything to Christine of his life at work.

This was one of those days. Even with the slowly consumed cheese on toast sitting comfortably within him, he found it difficult to relay anything positive about his morning. Instead, he contented himself with gazing fondly at his empty plate and muttering with feeling, ‘Bloody lawyers!'

Christine smiled. ‘I'm willing to bet that some senior barrister who is enjoying a much better lunch than you is now saying, “Bloody superintendents!”'

Lambert was cheered by that thought. It had been a no-win situation, but he hadn't done badly. He'd defended his goal stoutly; now it was up to the Crown Prosecution to score a late breakaway goal and win the game. They'd had all the right service from the police, if they could only produce a striker to kill the match off. He abandoned his over-strained metaphor, took an appreciative mouthful of tea from his favourite china beaker, and said again before he was aware of the words upon his tongue, ‘Bloody lawyers!'

It was good to see John's safety valve working and being used so efficiently, Christine Lambert thought. She said with a smile, ‘I know all about you, John Lambert. What you need to stretch your talents is a good juicy murder!'

Lambert knew himself well enough not to disagree with the thought. He didn't endorse it directly, but he shook his head and said, ‘Fraud cases are a damned nuisance. The minds lined up against you aren't just unscrupulous, they're clever as well. The investigation takes months, and just when it's getting interesting you hand it over to the Fraud Squad.'

Christine slid him a plate with a generous slice of the sponge cake with lemon curd filling she had made that morning. ‘You need something else to interest you.'

He should have sensed the danger, but he was replete and relaxed, perhaps even a little drowsy. He looked out at the garden, at the industrious blackbird on his lawn, and said affably, unthinkingly, ‘You could be right there.'

‘We've been getting on with plans for the Oldford Literary Festival.'

He smiled. ‘I can hear the capital letters as you speak. It sounds very impressive.'

‘It is, for a small place. You'll be surprised at some of the speakers we've got. Authors who are nationally famous, even internationally famous, some of them. It's a tribute to the industry of Mrs Dooks.'

‘And of her energetic committee,' he said loyally.

‘There might even be a role for you.'

At last, too late, he was on his guard. ‘Oh I don't think I could—'

‘Just a small role. Nothing that would need much preparation from you.'

‘Nevertheless, I think I'd reluctantly have to decline your—'

‘Mrs Dooks herself suggested you. I must say I was quite pleased by that.'

‘But even with the formidable Mrs Dooks behind you, I think it's only fair to say—'

‘It's the kind of thing the Chief Constable would approve of. Didn't you say he was very much in favour of senior policemen being visible presences in their local communities?'

It wasn't a phrase John Lambert would have used himself, though he remembered it from some official bulletin. ‘I don't think I ever said I agreed—'

‘Official policy, you see. You'd be helping to improve the police image. Endorsing the policies of your Chief Constable.'

Lambert smiled benignly, marshalling his defences. ‘The days are long gone when I needed to pay lip service to the latest police manifesto.'

‘You've never done that, even when you should have done. It's one of the reasons why I'm still here.'

He was affected by flattery when it popped up in unlikely places, and Christine knew it. Most children are. He smiled and said, ‘I'm glad to hear there is more than one reason.'

If he hoped she would indulge him with others, he was to be disappointed. She said, ‘It's only a small spot we're talking about, as I said. All we want you to do is to introduce an eminent speaker. A couple of minutes about his life and achievements, at the most. You'd be much the most appropriate person to do it.'

He tried to resist the notion of such distinction. He said with a rather patronizing air, ‘What is this mysterious assignment which demands me and only me?'

With the advantage of hindsight, he saw within minutes that he should never have asked that. Hindsight, as everyone agrees, is a wonderful thing.

TWO

M
arjorie Dooks was the driving force behind the Oldford Literary Festival. Everyone knew that and everyone was content that it should be so. No one would have dared to mount an assault on her pre-eminence. More importantly, no one wished to do that. Everyone recognized her ability, her vision, and, most important of all, her energy.

She was fifty-five now. She had taken early retirement from her senior position in the Administrative Department of the Civil Service with the advent of coalition government after the hung parliament of 2010. You couldn't serve two masters, she told anyone who would listen. It would compromise your principles; she would never do that. Her husband had a senior position in industry, so finance was not a problem. The country's loss was the local community's gain. Marjorie Dooks departed to apply her formidable talents to the benefit of Oldford, in the sleepiest part of Gloucestershire. The burghers of that small but ancient market town took deep breaths of anticipation, whilst the Civil Service mandarins breathed a long sigh of collective relief.

Mrs Dooks was a parish and district councillor, but she found local politics frustrating; she had been concerned with implementing national policies in her Civil Service days. ‘Irredeemably parochial' was her dismissive phrase, ignoring the fact that parish council affairs in particular were meant to be exactly that. The truth was that she was used to being in charge of her own department and her own staff and to issuing orders that would be instantly obeyed. Marjorie needed to use her considerable gifts to shape and direct something of her own.

The Oldford Literary Festival was exactly that. The town had a connection with Ivor Gurney, a worthy but almost forgotten poet of World War One, who had survived that cataclysm but in a sadly diminished state. The first festival celebrated this local connection. Subsequent ones went for broader themes and brought an unexpected distinction and cultural acclaim to the small country town that few outside Gloucestershire and Herefordshire had previously heard of.

The distinguished local writer who had been the original motivating force behind the Ivor Gurney festival was dead now. Marjorie Dooks had stepped into his role and provided new force and energy when it was most needed. She had quickly identified those people among the volunteers who could be most helpful to her. Enthusiasm was not always accompanied by efficiency; Marjorie knew that and acted accordingly. She didn't mind treading on prominent local toes, if it was for the general good. And you didn't work for twenty-five years in Whitehall without developing a pretty thick skin, as she reminded people with a hearty guffaw when they bridled at her more ruthless suggestions.

She was gradually getting used to the idea that voluntary helpers must sometimes be wooed rather than brusquely ordered to do things. In the Civil Service, rank was supreme. Everyone who reached any degree of eminence understood that completely. Tact was a welcome quality, but not an essential one. Making her way in what had still been essentially a man's world when she entered it, Marjorie had found energy and efficiency much more effective weapons than tact. Often bloody-minded determination had been more effective than diplomacy. It was difficult for her to play down the qualities that had served her so well in her working lifetime, especially when they were still so effective against local government bureaucracy.