The Crime Tsar (6 page)

‘Oh yes, I'm looking forward to that. Pairing me up with the cleaning lady, didn't you say?' He looked at her, detatched for a moment. ‘I mustn't tease you, must I, Jenni? I always forget, you have absolutely no sense of humour.'

Under the tablecloth his small, long-fingered hand grasped her knee.

‘But you have so much else to offer …'

Jenni, despite her revulsion, was fascinated by him. He had never been short of women, though physically he was barely on the acceptable side of repulsive. His beautifully cut suits and obsessive care of his appearance couldn't disguise his misshapen body or odd features.

It was often conjectured in the Red Lion's bar and those of the Commons itself that he was achondroplasic. But to the tabloid hacks, calling a spade a shovel, he was a dwarf. Not a short man with a chip on his shoulder. A dwarf. A Nibelung. He knew only too well the litany of names for his condition. They were like a quiver of darts always ready to be thrown at him. But whatever people's opinion of his looks, he was fearsomely intelligent, and the more power he accrued the more women found him attractive.

For him each conquest was a small act of revenge, for the years when the only female comfort he could find had to be paid for, in cash, and usually beforehand. Now he had Tom Shackleton's fine-boned wife to look forward to.

Jenni was aware of him watching her, his eyes almost closed.

‘Penny for them?'

She accompanied her question with an unconscious movement of her mouth that he found very exciting. He took her hand and gently pulled it under the cloth.

‘That.'

He smiled at the brief flicker of horror on her face as she touched his penis through the expensive wool of his suit. It made him want to have her more, knowing she found him as revolting as all the others. He always enjoyed the wives of handsome, successful, men – and Tom Shackleton was nothing if not handsome and successful. The devil was wearing the mask again.

‘I'm not quite sure why you want me to come on Thursday, Jenni. Can't live without me?'

‘Oh … I just want you to get to know Tom, that's all. It's important for you to know who your best people are, don't you think? For the future?'

‘Your husband's achievements are hardly a secret. But yes, you're right, it would be good to get to know him. Hear his ideas.'

They were interrupted by the waiter. They started to chat, nothings about items in the news, while the menus were handed to them and the specials explained. Jenni put her menu down, having decided.

‘Now,' she said. ‘I really do have to interview you. I've got a commission to do an in-depth on you – oh, are you all right to have your photograph done? It'll be huge, you know, double page with the photo across the centre.'

‘One of those grainy black-and-white jobs that show up the hairs on your nose?'

Stung by his accusation of having no humour she laughed.

‘Yes, that's the one.'

‘Speak to my secretary.'

Jenni put a small Dictaphone on the table. He looked surprised.

‘Do we need that?'

‘Oh it's just because I don't have shorthand. I'm a hopeless journalist.' She said this with a disarming smile.

Again he wondered how versatile that mouth would prove.

Jenni saw quite shockingly clearly the desire on his face and not for the first time was surprised at the power of sex.

For Jenni full penetrative sex and all the peripheral fumbling around it were, at best, aerobic exercise, at worst an uncomfortable,
unhygienic scrum. But it had proved a useful tool now she had learned how to use it sparingly… She hoped she could get what she wanted from this man without having his fingers on her and in her. She shuddered delicately.

‘Cold?' he asked solicitously.

‘Just someone walking over my grave. Now … let's see, what were we talking about? Oh yes … you. How nice.'

By seven o'clock bulletins from the Flamborough Estate were arriving at Tom Shackleton's office every fifteen minutes. One of his best superintendents, Don Cork, was coordinating officer in command, codename Gold. Running the show on the front line was Ron Randall, codename Silver. Not a GCSE between them but sixty years' experience of everything from male organs trapped in reluctant retrievers to civil unrest on a grand scale. The reports indicated that petrol bombs and weapons of all sorts, possibly firearms, were being brought into the area. Several cars had been set alight and shops looted.

The big white vans full of edgy young police officers spoiling for a fight were parked around the estate and on the front line, the main access to the estate. It was marked with police tape. Blue-and-white, fluttering in the light breeze. On one side of this fragile barrier the eerily silent blocks of flats, at every window a pair of eyes watching the two lines of uniformed officers who stood, unmoving, on the other side.

The front rank were without weapons or defence, the rear in riot gear, black greaves on dark overalls, helmets with prospect visors, long-handled batons and round Roman shields.

On Shackleton's instructions the police had not responded to any calls since four o'clock. Hysterical residents were dialling 999, screaming they'd been abandoned, threatening to sue, knowing their rights. The telephone operators didn't point out that, in law, neither police nor fire service had any obligation to respond to emergency calls from the public.

The media were gathering, ensuring by their presence a display of testosterone-fuelled aggression from both sides.

On the east of the estate, Carter's territory, there was another line of police, more vans, more tape.

Tom stood looking out of the window – the sky was alight with the
red streaks of a shepherd's delight. He knew the real trouble wouldn't start until dark – and until all the television crews had arrived. The audience in place and the theatre ready.

Janet knocked discreetly and came in.

‘BBC and ITV, Sky and local and national newspapers have arrived on the estate, sir. Mr Vernon thinks they were called by the youths themselves.'

No doubt about it.

‘Thank you, Janet. Oh, and I want to go down there. At nine o'clock. Not in my car.'

The sleek black Jaguar sweeping on to the estate would be bound to cause trouble. And be bad for the image of the Caring Chief Constable.

‘Send round a patrol car. But I want Gordon to drive.'

Janet nodded and left. Of course he wanted Gordon. Weasly, unimaginative Gordon. He had only one quality to recommend him to Shackleton. He was armed.

Shackleton went to the phone and dialled Geoffrey Carter's direct line.

He answered quickly.

‘Carter.'

‘Geoffrey, I'm on my way to the Flamborough – want to join me?'

‘What's your plan?'

‘Oh … I think you and I can talk our way out of this one … don't you?'

Carter laughed. ‘I think we could talk our way into and out of a Trappist nunnery.'

Shackleton smiled. ‘I'll meet you at nine-thirty outside the Crown pub by the station. It'll be just dark by then.'

‘Uniforms?'

Shackleton paused for a moment. He was wearing a suit, well cut, grey silk tie, white shirt, good shoes. He weighed up the forthcoming situation. The youths, inflamed against the police, would be taken off-guard by civilian clothes and give them a more sympathetic hearing.

But his own men would expect him to wear the uniform, not to make concessions to these yobs. And the uniform represented authority, an authority not to be intimidated by any section of
society. Finally, the impact in the media would be greater if they wore the crowns and insignia of their rank.

‘Uniforms,' he said. ‘Swagger sticks and gloves.'

‘And hats off asap. Yes. Good. Forty minutes then.' Carter rang off.

What on earth was he doing? He felt like a lad who'd just agreed to go joy-riding with the local tearaway. Why had he said yes? Was he trying to prove he was as macho as Tom Shackleton? It wasn't what chief constables did. It was stupid, it was risky and it wasn't by the book. But it was typical Shackleton. And it made the adrenalin run.

If Carter had a weakness it was being human. When he was a DC he had discovered the pleasure of masculine closeness after his team had got ‘a result'. The drinking, the physicality, the emotional memory of shared danger and, most importantly, the equality.

As he'd hurtled through the ranks he'd never stopped searching out that camaraderie. Geoffrey Carter was famous for always remembering the secretaries' birthdays, for making sure his driver got proper breaks and was fed on jobs. For caring even when there was no camera or microphone to record his good deeds. It was part of the legend that, when the son of an old sergeant based in the middle of nowhere died in a car crash, Carter visited him and supported the family through their bereavement.

Although not naturally ‘one of the lads', wherever he'd served he'd been popular and he'd gained a reputation for having a soft spot for the unconventional, if it got results.

Shackleton, whose natural constituency was the canteen rather than the restaurant, whose background had featured contact sports rather than ballet or opera, disliked the loud bonhomie of the changing room, the physical closeness of the triumphal piss-up. He was a loner whose occasional spectacular acts of daring or bravery were motivated solely by an instinct for self-challenge and self-promotion. He avoided at all costs getting involved. If gifts were given it was Jenni who bought and gave them, out of expediency.

Once, after a meeting, during which Gordon had been kept waiting in the car, the female councillor Shackleton had been lunching with asked if Gordon had been fed and watered. Shackleton looked blank and shook his head, not knowing why Gordon should have been. The woman had stood in the street and said, loud enough for any passer-by to hear, ‘You mean bastard!' Gordon was shocked
and secretly pleased. Shackleton thought her a fool and did not learn the lesson. He took no responsibility for anyone other than himself.

Shackleton opened the door beside his desk and went into his changing room. Immaculately ironed shirts and uniforms hung on wooden hangers. He didn't know it was Lucy who had pressed each piece, breathing in the steam as if he was in it. If he'd known it would have caused him embarrassment.

He put on his uniform with the care of a priest robing for Mass. He caught sight of himself in the mirror. Not a trace of the excitement he felt showed on his face. He felt aroused as other men did when anticipating an evening with a desirable woman. Alive at the possibilities.

Carter hadn't arrived when Gordon stopped the patrol car outside the dingy pub on the edge of the Flamborough Estate. Shackleton got out. It was dark now and the bleakness of the road was softened by the orange street lights.

Shackleton had chosen the Crown because it was a Caribbean and Irish pub. Its regulars were no fans of the police, but even less keen on the Africans and Asians who were comparative newcomers, accusing them of throwing their rubbish into the front gardens and of being responsible for most of the crime on the estate.

Most of the men and all of the few women customers were older people, the men working on building sites or in the alternative economy, paving and tiling the front gardens of suburbia. Church on Sunday and a good punch-up after closing on Friday. As usual the oldest men were playing dominoes in the saloon bar.

Shackleton stood outside, looking into the estate. It was uncannily quiet, no Bangra or drumming blaring out of flats and cars. No loud, uncontrolled adolescent voices. Nothing. In the distance he saw a flash of light followed immediately by a loud bang.

‘Car going up,' observed Gordon. He wasn't frightened but he quivered like a whippet. Fight or flight. With Gordon it was always fight.

Shackleton became aware of three black women sitting outside a flat opposite the pub. It was an extraordinary sight. The occupants had marked out an area on the scrubby grass as theirs. It was bordered with pots containing a riot of flowers, ivies and shrubs. All plastic.

Against the wall of the flat were oil cans, sinks, and even an old
lavatory pan filled with more plastic blooms in vivid colours undreamt of in nature. One of the women was carefully dusting them and spraying room freshener on those she felt had lost their scent. The two other women sat in fold-down picnic chairs, a five-litre bottle of sarsaparilla between them.

‘Hello there, Mr Shackleton. You keepin' well?'

He was surprised to be greeted by name; he was sure he didn't know these women but stepped closer to be sure. The woman who spoke was the heaviest of the three. She sat, her knees parted by the flesh of her thighs, watching the evening with a great smile on her round, shining face.

On her head, she wasn't so much wearing as had precariously perched a pink hat made of synthetic straw and in the style of old-fashioned girls'-school felt hats. A wide ribbon of deeper pink went round the brim to a tight, flat bow at the back.

Shackleton wondered which would give first, the chair or the thin material of her dress, which struggled to encompass the vastness of her bosoms and belly. There was something so elementally sexual in the expanse of her; her cavernous cleavage was so unashamedly inviting he looked away, feeling inadequate and ridiculous and, above all, white.

The woman sitting next to her was as thin and dry as she was voluptuous and moist. Her legs, also apart at the knee, had high calf muscles and long ankles finishing in large flat feet which pushed out the sides of larger flatter shoes.

The feet were crossed, resting on their outers, her legs so thin they looked like crossbones and her fleshless face the skull. She said nothing but nodded amiably. Her long bony hands, the skin cracked through lack of care and sun, worked quickly at her crochet. A pile of doilies and anti-macassars lay on a newspaper by her feet.

Shackleton looked at her and recognised in the sharpness of her eye sockets and the dullness of her skin the proximity of death. He glanced away, towards the fire they had made in a small tin bath. The third woman stopped her dusting to turn and look at him.