Irony In The Soul

Chapter 6

SIX

Monday morning, about eight, while Mandy parked the car, Jack stood in the weak sunshine and cooling breeze, appraising the front of the utilitarian police station that had been his place of work for some twenty years. Reflecting and resolving personal issues, Mandy thought, compassionately, bearing in mind she was irritated with Jack’s continual stuttering all morning. Sidling up, she put her arm around his waist, as far as it would go, ‘Okay?’

‘Yeah…’ pensive, ‘builders, what’s happening?’

‘They’re putting in a disabled persons lift for the new Chief,’ and she walked off with Jack playing catch up. Made a change she thought, new order of things?

‘Hold up Dobbin, new Chief, where’s Sitting Bull?’

Passing through into reception she called back, ‘Compulsory retirement. His thirty years were up and they’re using that as an excuse to get rid of good experienced coppers who burden the salary bill.’

A muttered voice could be heard over the builder's noise, ‘I only have a couple of years left, then it’ll be me,’ a simpering, sniffy voice, from Hissing Sid the desk sergeant. Jack would ordinarily whistle the theme from Z cars or go into Pride and Prejudice and ask Sid if his family were well, but clearly things were not well, so Jack skipped Cod and Chips twice. ‘Sid, buzz me through snotty.’ Sid did, and Jack slipped in behind the front desk, ‘What’s up, is it your daughter?’ Sid nodded, close to tears.

Mandy had never really liked Hissing Sid, considering him creepy, but since he helped Jack arrest a particularly nasty ex-copper, who was subsequently charged with the murder of Meesh’s mother and Biscuit, a spook colleague of Jack’s, she had reviewed her opinion.

‘Tell me, Sid.’ It was Jack’s sensitive voice, normally reserved for kittens and criminals, 'your daughter?'

‘The lump…’ he swallowed ‘it's back. They’re operating tomorrow.’

‘Then what the f**k are you doing here?’ Sid and Mandy jumped.

‘Jack, language…’ Mandy chided.

Confused, as he had always sworn, considering it a part of his colourful charm, and ignoring the clanking, which he presumed was the builders, he reacted, ‘Mandy sweet’art, I thought I’d arranged for Sid to have some compassionate leave?’ Jack followed Sid’s eyes, past Mandy, to a tall and slim, middle aged man in a bowler hat, shabby and blotchy complexion to a face shaved within an inch of its life, black blazer, city-boy, striped trousers, and unfeasible highly polished shoes that made Jack’s dealer boots look like shagged out plimsolls.

The man wobbled, as if getting his balance, ‘Aaaahem Inspectaaah Awstin, I presume,’ a highly effected posh voice, guaranteed to get right up Jack’s nose. Jack was not particularly prejudiced about the posh, but they had to get over a lot before he would allow himself to like them.

‘Livingstone actually; the Sergeant’ll be with you, as-soon-as, take a seat.’ Jack replied, throwing his hand where he presumed a chair to be.

Mandy stopped Jack going for the phone, ‘Jack, this is the new Chief Constable, Colonel James Horrocks.’

Jack looked the man up and down, ‘Colonel? They call you Jim?’

‘Awstin, you will call me Colonel, or Sir.’

Oh Yeah, like that’s going to happen, he thought to himself, saw Mandy slap her forehead, and realised he must have spoken his thoughts. Jack buzzed himself back into the reception waiting area, strode to the Colonel and shook his hand, ‘And you can call me, Jane, Jim. (Jack was known as Jane Austin in the Nick). Now, if you will excuse me, I need to arrange a replacement for Sid, his daughter’s ill and he should be home, so if you want fish and chips forget it.’ (Jack always thought Sid looked like he was serving behind a fish and chip counter). Mandy felt life was playing out, all over again. Jack and authority was okay, but Jack and authority that asserted itself for the sake of it, was a definite, No.

Jack ignored the Colonel, as he leaned over the counter looking up Nylon’s telephone number.

‘Aaaahem.’

‘You wanna get sumfink for that mate,’ Jack said, continuing with what he was doing, oblivious. The Colonel looked taken aback, and wobbled some more as Jack gave up and hit random phone buttons and looked to the ceiling perplexed when Nylon did not materialise on the end of the line.

‘Aaaahem, Awstin, a word, now.’ Oh no, Mandy thought, you do not speak to Jack like this.

Jack turned, ‘What’s the magic word?’ he said, matter-of-fact.

During the ensuing staring competition, that Mandy called testiculating, her phone rang. She answered, listened, ended the call, looked at Jack and tried to break the stare, ‘Jack, we have the body of a man and a pile of rubble, we may have a stoning victim.’ She thought, only with Jack could so many things happen all at once, but in the meantime, Sid had got Nylon on the phone.

Jack broke off testiculating and returned to the telephone which had an irritated ant’s voice summoning his attention. He spoke to the ant, a staffing sergeant known as Nylon, whose name was Brian, shortened to Bri that Jack saw as Bri-nylon, and so on; God, it gets tiring Mandy thought, and she’d only been in five minutes.

‘Nylon, old china, yes, spot-on, thanks mate. Yeah, the tea comes out through the bullet hole when I drink. Listen, I need to get Sid back home to be with his daughter, be a sport and set up a replacement, will you? Good, I have a body to look at.’ He laughed like a drain, pressure Mandy thought; he was sensitive to it regardless of the bravura. ‘Droll, Nylon,’ he looked back to Mandy.

‘Don’t say it,’ Mandy said, heading the joke off at the pass.

‘Aaaahem.’

‘Blimey mate, you got a problem?’ Jack commented, still distracted, ‘Bit wobbly on the pins an-all, been on the piss?’ A throw away comment as he dashed through reception and up the stairs, two at a time, calling “Dobbin” as he went. First floor, along the corridor, past Mandy’s office, the toilets, and into the Community Policing (CP) room, a room that had the stamp of Jack and an old age pensioner cleaner, Dolly.

The CP room was a tired, high ceilinged, voluminous hall of a room, partially divided by ill-fitting and crooked, folding screen doors that had long ago lost their tracking. Around three walls, including the wonky bi-folds, were worktops, chairs and workstation computers. One of these workbenches had a run of six computer flat screens and two girls; Connie, short for Confucius, a slight Chinese girl, whose real name was Way Lin, and Frankie, a strong, tall woman, forties, fair faced, cropped fair hair, masculine clothes and a computer genius. Jack’s computer department, known affectionately as KFC, Konfucius and Frankie’s Computers, and on wheelie chairs, they patrolled Silicon Alley.

In the centre of the room was Jack’s, chaos theory, collection of odd tables. If you wanted to talk about something, you tossed a note onto the table. You then had the right to talk about it, and others had the right to read it, to think, or comment. Out in the open and get out of jail free cards for stupid ideas that may have merit, or you just had the piss taken out of you; fair, and liked by everyone.

The fourth wall was the Crime wall, a mixture of wall and shiny marker board. Nobby and Alice Springs, who worked the wall, were gradually bringing in technology. Jack resisted, not because he was a dinosaur, he insisted this was definitely not the case, it was just he didn’t know how to work the new stuff.

Nobby, Detective Constable David Manners, and the Commander’s son, was a tall, slim, and genteel looking youngster, a pleasant boy who Jack had resisted taking on at first. Alice Springs was, however, a different kettle-of-fish, fish being the operative word. Alice Herring hailed from the innocent side of the enormous Portsmouth, Herring, crime family, most of whom fell into Jack’s category, friendly rogues, charming Spivs, an attitude which had not always served him well; Jack was a copper who lived and let live, but if you were a wrong-en, he would nick you hard. Mandy always thought he was the old-fashioned clip-em-round-the-ear, sort of copper.

Alice, nicknamed Springs, was a tall beauty, black glossy shoulder length hair, slim, oval face and a shapely body that moved how it should, and unless someone had poked your eyes out, you could not miss it. She also wore clothes to display her personal assets, hence her other nickname, Spanner, given by Jack, of course, who said, when he looked at her, she made his nuts tighten. Not one that went down well with the women in the station, but Alice relished Jack’s remarks. She was a strong woman who usually got what she wanted, and did not care how she got it, but, as Jack had said when he brought her into CID, “She’s survived a criminal family, proved herself on the beat, and has a brain”; her other assets needed no further introduction.

‘No Jo-Jums?’ Jack called out to anyone.

The room had been busy and nobody noticed Jack’s arrival, nobody was expecting him, he reminded himself, so as not to feel hurt. Some heads turned and greeted him nonchalantly, except for Connie, who could not maintain a conspiracy for long, ‘Oh, Jack, you back, how love, you okay now?’

He’d missed the Chinese accent, ‘Lubbly Jubbly sweet’art.’

Nobby spoke up, he could never keep up a conspiracy for long either, ‘Jo’s at the scene, good to have you back.’

Jack saw Mandy smiling, he whispered, ‘The old nonchalant welcome back, eh?’

As she turned to go to her own office, she flicked her hair that she was growing longer, Jack had asked her to, and he liked it, ‘I’m sure I do not know what you’re talking about, Rhett,’ a sweet Southern belle accent.

‘Gone with the Wind babes, brilliant,’ he said, lifting his leg, and she heard as the door closed behind her, “Where’s my f*****g deckchair?” a comment Mandy decided to ignore, noticing out of the corner of her eye, the Colonel struggling up the stairs on his tin legs. Unexpectedly, the clunking headed to the CP room and Mandy decided to let Jack sink or swim for a while.