Kind Hearts And Martinets Collection

Chapter 9

Maternal instincts on red alert, Jo-Jums sprung to Jack’s side, giggling and cooing as she steered him to his chair. ‘DS Wild, I’m not one of your brood!’ Jack retorted and immediately felt a bit Catholic. Jo was a good woman, loyal colleague and, in his way, he loved her. She’d worked with him in Sissies, and when he was demoted and shifted to Community Policing, she was one of the few who stood by him. In her trademark baggy cardigans, tent dresses, Mumsey stood firm, hands on hips. ‘Sorry, Jo,’ he said.

Disguising her actions, she kissed him on the forehead, and so all could hear, ‘Feck you, Jane Austin, you’re a bleedin’ wuss.’ Tantrum over, normal relations restored, and grinning, Jo made her way to her seat, and everyone breathed.

In the meantime, Mandy returned from the Ladies producing a roll of toilet paper and collected the sellotape. Jack hissed as he examined his knees then his toe, laid back, and put his handkerchief to his bleeding head. Peeling a strip of sellotape, Mandy said, ‘You put your head back for a nose bleed, dinlo, and don’t look to me to get the bogeys out of your cut; that hanky is filthy.’

He bolted upright, ‘You say the nicest things, bacon-bonce.’

‘Bacon-bonce?’

Panicked, and not wanting people to think Oldtimers had set in, ‘Just made it up.’

Too late, Dolly was in, ‘No you didn’t, we used to say that all the time in the fifties.’

‘The 1850s, Dolly?’

The Dolly and Jack banter would have continued if Mandy had not said, pleasantly, ‘Sorry, Dolly, we"ve things to sort before we go home tonight.’

‘That’s alright, dearie, I was going to clean next door first, least that’s what Jamie said to do. He was in a good mood, d‘you tickle his fancy?’ Dolly remarked as she went off chortling and spraying, Jack thinking his office might be no safer than Chernobyl.

Mandy thought about the highly polished floor of the CP Room. Jack had apparently been offered a carpet as this voluminous, old and tired room still had the original plastic tiles. He’d refused, and playing the old cockney boy, said he preferred the “Oil clorfe,” or to the posh, linoleum. Dolly loved the floor, polished it regularly to a beautiful shine, and Jack would say, “Look at that, real working class, proud of what she does, happy with her lot but wanting the best for her kids,” and he meant it; Dolly was his girl, and woe betide anyone who upset her.

Mandy summoned the team to the jumble of tables Jack had dubbed the “chaos table.” Jack decided he needed his deckachairo, offered up a token Cornetto and, complete with fresh toilet paper and sellotape, but still clasping the blood-soaked handkerchief to his forehead, he sat, feet up.

CornettoWotsermatterwivim, Mandy thought, looking around at the team: Jo-Jums; Nobby; the beautiful Alice Springs; Half-bee who was DC Eric Timpson; Kettle, a tall slender black man, not a huge intellect, posh, deep voice, real name Russell Hobbs; and Wally, a bear of a man whose real name was Ken Burke. ‘Where’s Biscuit?’ she asked. Biscuit was a Detective Sergeant, recently transferred from vice to work with Jack. Biscuit said he liked his nickname, preferred it to ginger nut, which was the unsubtle epithet given him in vice; he had an abundance of curly, ginger hair. His real name, Brian Smith.

‘Biscuit’s on something for me, Mands,’ Jack answered, though he did wonder where he was.

Mandy continued, ‘Jo, where are we, drugs and the gang assaults?’

The question hung in the stilted atmosphere, Jack looked sheepish, and Mandy thought the delay was because Jo-Jums needed to shuffle her thoughts and reply in her usual succinct manner, but instead, Jo replied, ‘Begging your pardon, Ma’am, and I appreciate having to look up the leg Jane’s shorts can be a mite distracting, and please pardon my French, but what the feck are you talking about?’

Jack took his legs off the table and wrapped up the ends of his shorts, miffed, ‘That’s not French, it’s Irish,’ he said, ‘and why’s everyone looking up me shorts? You could always look away, Jo.’

Never one to be bested by Jack, Jo retorted, ‘I was intrigued, you seem to be covered in toilet paper, including a big lump sticking out your arse.’

Mandy had been around Jack and Jo for many years and would not let this spat distract her; this was either a play on Father Ted or Jo really had no clue as to what was going on. Jack was sweetness and light, having taken his legs off the table, stepped out the deckchair and settled in his wheelie chair, and she knew, this was not Father Ted.

Father TedFather TedJack shaped to speak when there was a faint scratching at the door; Jack ignored it. Mandy thought, did he ignore it or did he not hear? He started to speak, scratching again, ‘Come in,’ he had heard. Nothing, a continued scratching, Martin was alert, ears pricked. ‘Come in, for Christ’s sake,’ a distinct tutting from Dolly next door.

Mandy admonished him with her eyes and went to the door, shaking her head. Hovering in the doorway was a flat screen atop a box of tricks encircled by a pair of spindly arms. The machinery spoke, ‘Scue me, bu’ I go message you wan’ me.’

Jack shouted from his chair, ‘Confucius? Come in, sweet’art, and put your stuff over there.’ Jack waved his hands indiscriminately around the room that clearly Confucius could not see as Confucius couldn’t see anything over her burden, but it was clear also Jack had not a clue where Confucius would be working; not his problem.

‘Let me help you,’ Mandy offered.

‘Oh, fang you, Ma’am.’ Yep, this is Confucius, who put her stuff down in a space along the back wall, and standing beside Jack, she started to talk about getting a ping slip from Hiss Sid and “Not know wot it mean.” Jack had conspiratorially asked Sid to use the pink Post-it so she would say “Ping,” not being the most politically correct man you would ever meet.

Post-it‘Jane can’t see out of his right eye, love.’ Mandy said.

‘Oh, solly about eye, sir, does hurt?’

‘Only when I laugh, but it does help me to sense when something is amiss.’

"Like shagging," a unified chorus from the team.

Confucius shuffled to Jack’s left side, and he could see Way Lin’s four-foot-nothing, skinny frame, round face with John Lennon bottle glasses and distinctive teeth; well, not four-foot, more like five-foot, but if you could not exaggerate in this life, what is there left to live for, Jack thought, exaggerating to himself.

John Lennon‘Solly, sir, I no unerstan why I here?’ and Way Lin looked in horror at the toilet paper, sellotape, and the blood saturated, bogey-ridden, handkerchief, ‘Is this joke, sir?’

‘What, the toilet paper or the job?’

‘Ah, bofe, I fin.’

Jack answered using his kind and sensitive voice, usually reserved for kittens and villains, accompanied with his universal wry smile, ‘Way Lin, you wanted to do more in computers?’ Way Lin was confused, and Mandy wondered if Jack came up with Confucius because she was Chinese or whether she was just confused. ‘You’ve been working with Hissing Sid, right?’ Way Lin nodded. ‘Well, he’s recommended you, so what d’you say?’

‘I only done free eve classes and Googled Millwall for you, sir,’ Way Lin answered.

Mandy gripped the edge of her seat; it stopped her leaping up in dismay. She’d seen Jack, over many years, do some daft things, but wondered if this time he’d lost it, big time. He’d clearly not briefed his team, hijacked the investigation for what can only be called a cowboy outfit to run, and apart from Paolo, everyone was up for it. She shook her head slowly and jumped with everyone else as Jack all of a sudden leapt up and strutted; it was his look how masculine I am walk; she was reminded of John Wayne with a carrot up his arse.

how masculine I am‘Don’t worry your little cotton socks, Confucius babes, you’ll be working alongside Frankie, a real computer expert, and you’ll love her too,’ and he nudged Confucius with his elbow, and she went flying across the room as Jack’s one eye winked; and they say he can’t multi-task.

Amid the team’s confusion, and the patent fear on the puffed oval face of Confucius, Dolly shouted from the other room, ‘You will, she’s lovely.’

‘Dolly, why don’t you put your cleaning stuff down and join us,’ Mandy called back.

‘I would if I thought I"d hear something interesting, dearie,’ the faint, almost feeble reply muffled by a hiss that signalled the death knell for the Ozone layer.

Mandy put her hand to her forehead, apart from Jack’s not particularly subtle reference to Frankie’s s****l preferences, and the fact he thought the two girls would get on famously, in more ways than one, it would appear he had also discussed this with Dolly. She felt obliged to reassure Way Lin. ‘Jack’s right, Way, you will...’

Way Lin interrupted, ‘Oh no, I call Lin, no Way.’

Jack resisted the obvious comment, and Mandy appreciated it. ‘Okay, Confucius,’ and Jack winked with his good eye, ‘Jack is right, he and Dolly, by all accounts, Frankie is the best.’

Mandy stood, stretched fully, arms and legs akimbo, and Jack thought, there’s never a sunny window when you need one, and talking into a yawn, ‘Why don’t we all meet up tomorrow morning, get the ball rolling. Before then, perhaps Jack will tell you all what he just told the Commander, why you lot should be leading this feckin’ investigation with the world’s best feckin’ computer expert on the team.’ Way Lin mewed as Mandy sat back down, sighing loudly, which set Martin running back and forth.

‘When time?’ Jack asked, rubbing his hands together, thinking he’d gotten away with it, which caused Martin to stop, his dog aware he rarely got away with anything.

Nobby, keen to impress, ‘I can do 6.30, Guv.’

Jack swung his gaze around the room and settled to lecture the new boy. ‘Nobby, Nobby, my boy. Are you married?’ Jack shook his head as though what he was going to say was obvious. ‘Of course not, I’m not sure you would get on with her guide dog...’ paused for laughter, flicked his hand in receipt, ‘...and how many children do you have? How many American Cop TV shows d"you watch?’ Nobby was looking worried. Jack gestured his bloodied head to Jo, ‘Take Jo-Jums, she and her husband have to get up before the four kids, get themselves ready, then get the kids up and abluted.’ Mandy smiled; she’d not heard Jack say that for a while. ‘Then she gets them breakfasted while Tanner does the lunches; on a copper’s salary, you can’t afford school dinners, not with this government anyway...’ He paused to look around to see if he could spot a closet Tory in his team. ‘Then you have to get them to their different schools, always assuming they’re all well, and one doesn’t want to go, and you suspect it’s because they’re being picked on, and what can you do about that?’

Jack took a deep breath, intending to move on, put his hand up to stop Nobby from talking, looked at his hanky and planted it firmly back on his forehead, out of sight out of mind, another Jack maxim. ‘As you go through your career, you’ll meet coppers who will imitate the yank cop shows on the telly and tell you that you need to work all the hours God sends. All that will get you, old son, is a divorce, unhappy kids that resent you and the police, a shorter career than you imagined, and you’ll likely drink yourself into an early grave.’ Still with his stopping traffic hand up, ‘You’ll meet coppers who will tell you to distance yourself from what happens, not to take anything personally. You’ll witness black humour at a murder scene, but all that will get you is more of the same.’ His arm was hurting, so he swapped it, propped the new one with his other arm, this replacement hand wavering with the bloody hanky. ‘Nobby, to be a good copper, you’ve got to empathise, and when it’s shite you feel, you have to grow with that. You need a home and a family and someone you can share the good and the bad times. You’ve got to be there, because it’ll not happen otherwise, and you can’t do that working all hours. You need to understand people, what makes them tick, and, when you’ve done all that, you Nick the feckin’ bastards.’

Everyone chortled, except Dolly, who stood unnoticed at the back of the room. She walked to Jack, who stood to greet her, towering over the diminutive cleaner, and she cried into his ballooning waist; Jack had saved her son from drugs, gangsters, and the gutter. Dolly’s son was now an accountant, and if rumours were to be believed, Jack had helped fund him through college. Here ended Nobby’s lesson.

Jack collected Dolly’s sprays and, hugging the old girl, Martin following, quiet, they left the room that was Jack’s room, it sparkled and gleamed; it was loved.