Kind Hearts And Martinets Collection

Chapter 12

It was cloudy, the full moon obscured, but the diffused light was enough for the flat sea to give off that shifting sheen Jack loved, leaning on the promenade railings, looking out to the Solent, while Martin sniffed every blade of grass, crook and granny. After a while he realised his vacant gazing at the shipping, their lights moving slowly across the water, the twinkling from the Isle of Wight, some lights from the nearby Spitbank fort, had allowed time to pass on. He whistled discordantly for Martin, ‘Where the hell is that dog?’ Looking for the flashing collar light in the near darkness, Jack began to get angry, so Martin nudged Jack’s leg as if to say, “I’ve been here all the time numpty.”

Biscuit was late. Jack hurried off the common, rummaged for his phone, cursing he didn’t have Biscuit’s number. Stood under a streetlight, the light on his phone didn’t work anymore; probably needed a new bulb. The elastic bands and duct tape meant it was a delicate to use, but he was able to call Kingston Police Station, and the night deteriorated.

‘Kingston police.’

Jack thought he knew everyone at Kingston. ‘Who’s this?’

‘Who’s this?’

‘I asked first,’ Jack said. She hung. He dialled again, his phone flagging, and he made a mental note to get some more duct tape as well as a bulb.

‘Kingston police.’

‘This is Detective Inspector Austin, I need to get hold of Biscuit, I mean Detective Sergeant Brian Smith. Can you give me his mobile number please.’

‘Are you the funny guy that called just now?’

Jack was irritated. ‘I am, and you should not hang up on calls, it might appear odd to you, but it could be important—’ She hung up.

He rang again. ‘Kingston police.’

‘This is DI Austin, do not hang up.’

The telephonist got her retaliation in first.

‘Listen, I don’t know who you are, but I’m volunteering for this work. That means I am not getting paid. I am giving up my free time to pitch in and help this country due to the dire straits the Labour Government left us in.’

Jack could feel the hairs on the back of his neck stand up, the feckin’ Big Society had reached his Nick. The bile in his stomach bubbled; this was his Labour Party she was talking about, not that he was a member, wasn’t even sure they would want him, and in his view, it was the greedy Tory bastard bankers who got the country in this mess. His eye was giving him gyp. ‘I’ll say again, this is DI Austin, and I need to get hold of Detective Sergeant Smith. It’s urgent; I need you to give me his number.’

‘I cannot give out numbers, how do I know who you are?’

‘Put me through to Dawkins on the front desk.’

‘Aha, if you worked here, you would know his name was Dawson,’ and she hung up. This used to be easier, he thought as he rung back.

‘Kingston police.’

‘Listen, darlin’, phone Sergeant Smith and tell him to ring DI Austin, take down my number, and if you can’t get hold of him ring me back, comprendeh!’ He thought, nice touch that, Mexican, sure the telephonist had not detected he’d incorrectly used his Gestapo accent.

‘You, sir, are not a pleasant man,’ must have picked up on the Gestapo, ‘why do you not phone his wife?’

‘What?’

‘Sergeant Smith’s wife has been calling saying he was expected home.’

‘And what did you say?’

‘I told her he was likely in the pub with his colleagues, like they do on the telly.’

Jack sighed. ‘This, lady, is real life, and believe it or not, coppers are not always down the pub,’ but she’d hung up again just as he realised he was about to go to the pub. ‘The Big Society. Help!’ he shouted to the black sky, and Jack thought he saw the couple crossing the zebra crossing nod in agreement, but if they walked that fast in the dark, they could trip.

* * *

Jack locked his bike to his regular lamppost outside C&A’s and made a call to Mandy while Martin c****d his leg. ‘Christ’s t**s, you’ve wee’d your way around the seafront, surely you can’t have any left.’

‘Jack, I’ve just got into the bath, and the last thing I need is you winding me up about weeing around Portsmouth. You were bang out of order today, and I’ve just heard that rather than being a hero at an armed robbery, you interrupted Osama and his wife shagging on the rice.’

‘To be fair, Mandy love, I never said that.’

‘Yes, but you never said, “oh, I just interrupted some shagging, and there were no armed bandits.” ’

‘No, you got me there, Amanda.’

She noted with a catch in her breath he had called her Amanda. Jack could hear the gentle lapping of her bath water, and his mind went a bit haywire. ‘What is it, Jack? I don’t like it when you go quiet on me; it’s unnatural.’

‘I was imagining you in your bath, and me in with you. I’d appreciate it if you didn’t make me have the end with the taps.’

He heard her sigh, it echoed, ‘If I wanted you to have the taps, you would have the taps, but as it happens, my taps are on the side, and before you say you’ll be right up, I’m picturing you in the bath with your sellotaped toilet tissue toe hanging over the edge because you don’t want to get it wet, two bony scrawny knees also with bog roll and sellotape, varicose-veined skinny legs folded double so they would fit in, and a head that must have been bashed around about a dozen times today and, unfortunately, not one of those times was me.’

There was a short silence. ‘You imagined me in with you.’

‘Jack, I’m trying to unwind.’

‘I’ll take a rain check, suppose a f**k’s out the question?’

An exasperated sigh and agitated water. ‘Jack, why did you call?’

The end of the conversation was nigh, he had a sense for these things. ‘I’m worried about Biscuit. He was the one calling saying he was my dad.’

‘Well, now I’m worried about him.’

‘No, he was scared, Mandy. I arranged to meet at the seafront, only he didn’t show. I phoned the nick, and some tart answered who said she was one of Mackeroon’s volunteers saving the country, said Biscuit’s wife had been calling, expecting him home. Telephone tart suggested he would likely be down the pub like all other coppers. Mandy, what’s happening?’

‘Big Society volunteers. I’ll make some calls, where are you?’

He mumbled a response. ‘Err, just going into the pub, but I’m meeting to talk sedition,’ he replied, as though this was a reasonable thing.

‘I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that, now get off the line and leave your phone on.’

‘Wilco, Ma’am, roger you and out,’ and he hung up to dodge Mandy’s repost, and man and dog went into the pub.

* * *

C&A’s was a quiet, old-style, English local, no music, and a friendly landlord and landlady. The long, narrow bar had its inconveniences but meant you were easily in touch with the other regulars. Sidling along this bar, Jack acknowledged greetings from friendly faces, and as he approached the counter, Bruce the landlord was filling Martin’s bowl with cooking bitter, Martin’s favourite; it was weak, so he didn’t get too pissed. Jack’s drink came second. It’s a dog’s life, he remarked to himself as he always did. Jack called out to his table of co-conspirators, they all had full glasses but had a drink off him anyway, except Bernie, who wanted a cheese sandwich. ‘I asked if you wanted a drink, not a four-course bleedin’ meal,’ Jack responded curtly to the dishevelled reporter.

‘Cheese sandwich?’ Bruce asked.

‘Yeah, old cheese and no pickle, got any stale bread?’ Then Jack’s standard, ‘How much? How Much!’ and paid, he always did. He needed more exertion classes, and lifting the drinks over heads and around bodies, ‘There you go, you greedy bastards, and there’s a cheese sandwich coming for the gutter press.’

‘You prolong active life, Jack,’ Bernie said, quoting back one of Jack’s expressions that drew on a dog food advert for PAL. It amused those present except Martin, who looked up from his bowl, thinking PAL would be nice, better than the dried crap he was forced to eat. Jack had heard this all before, and many times, especially after Martin had had a drink.

PALPALJack supped a satisfying draft of beer and scanned his co-conspirators. Bernie Lebolt, a medium-height fella, fair hair going grey, no surprise at just over 50, but still thick, the hair but Jack did wonder. Bernie showed the wear and tear from smoking sixty a-day, dishevelled clothes stinking of fag ash and sweat; Jack thought Bernie cultivated his reporter look. He had no woman, no surprise there.

What could you say about the intellectualising Brainiac, a University lecturer? Jack would say, “Shut-up, Brainiac, we’ve come out for a larf,” thinking it odd Brainiac didn’t enjoy his jokes, nice bloke, bushy academic beard, struggling to disguise flaky skin below that made you marvel at the stomachs of women.

Pin Head was a short nervous man, dead skinny, dead ugly, like a shrivelled prune, and dead jumpy; they called it St Vitas dance in the old days, sitting still only when it was his round. Brilliant sense of humour, which Jack thought essential with his condition, but you had to concentrate as he bounced all over the place.

Then there was the evangelical Jon-Bob and Mary-Bob, husband and wife with the look of the Von Trapp family; fortunately, C&A’s didn’t have a puppet theatre, although he’d often noticed them eying up Bruce’s curtains, probably to make play clothes. A nice couple, though irritating, finishing each other’s sentences, but it was fun distracting them and observing their frustration when they messed up.

The good thing about all Jack’s fellow conspirators was they could sit all evening and not say a word to each other, enjoy a few beers, leave and say they’d had a good night. One of the qualities of a good English pub, sublime nothingness, companionable and comfortable silence, and despite the desperate need to overthrow the Government, this was one of those nights where little would be said. Mackeroon could sleep safe; Jack’s thoughts were of concern for Biscuit and miffed Bernie wanted a cheese sandwich.

A murmuring, much like hubba, hubba, energised the comfortable silence, and Jack took in the vision of loveliness that was Alice Herring, framed in the portal to this fine, but ordinary, hostelry. Alice was scanning, looking for someone, and when her eyes alighted on Jack, she wiggled her fingers as if saying hallo to a two-year-old. Always intimidated by women, which he never acknowledged, Jack lifted his arm and mimicked a finger wiggle in response; reduced to a quivering imbecile by a girl, Jack Austin, what are you man or moose?

hubba, hubbaHe did a moose sound, trying to get his deep voice going as Alice wafted like a wood nymph would if there’d been a carpenter around, making her way in a sensuous slow motion, passing by stunned men and envious women. Alice swivelled her beautifully rounded hips, tightly contained in Levi’s, and sat on Jack’s lap, stroked his face with her right hand, slipped it around his neck, and pulled his face to hers. She hugged and kissed his disfigured cheek, lingered around his neck, and breathed in like she was enjoying his scent in an oxygen tent; and Jack, being only human, was affected by this and not just in the cheek, neck, and ear department, wondering if Alice was asthmatic.

She surfaced, a stunned silence in the bar. ‘Jack, is that your telephone?’ but that was on the table, was she stupid? She kissed him again; so what if she was learning impaired. ‘My oncle Alf wants to meet you at the Mother Ship,’ huskily said. A Star Trek aficionado could be convinced this was a temptress alien luring him back to her spacecraft for scientific experiments, except Jack knew Alice Herring’s uncle was Alfie Herring, a villain shading the likeable rogue side of dangerous, and the Mother Ship was Alfie’s local pub in bandit territory. ‘Spit-spot,’ and she made to lift off his lap.

Star Trek‘I’ll need about ten minutes before I can respectably walk out of here.’

Alice smiled sweetly; make that fifteen minutes. ‘Mandy’s in for a treat, but I have to admit, I’m wet.’

‘You are?’

‘Yeah, Martin’s been licking my hand.’

Jack slumped. ‘Alice, babes, I’d love to meet your oncle, but I’m not up to cycling all that way, and my bike’s outside.’

She looked into his swimming eyeball, and he readied himself in case she sat on him again. ‘Is it?’

Aware of the silence, the thumping pulse in his ears, Jack gathered his anorak and used it to cover his embarrassment, croaked, ‘Police work,’ and bent double, shuffled to the exit as bright red as his eejit coat. As he stepped outside, so the jeering started, quietly at first, and reaching a crescendo of, “Get em down, you Zulu warrior, get em down...” ‘They always sing that when I leave. I think it’s juvenile,’ Jack said.

Get em down, you Zulu warrior, get em down...”The cool air worked wonders for Jack’s bits and pieces, but what really did the trick was his bike had been stolen. “Bastard,” he said, several times.

An amused Alice suggested this was not likely to get his bike back. ‘Jump in my car; we can report it tomorrow morning.’

Like a Buddhist mantra, Jack repeated “Bastard” as he climbed awkwardly into Alice’s old mini, bending his stiff, wounded knees. Martin pushed past to get on the front seat; he liked to pretend he was driving. ‘To the back, hound,’ and Martin weighed up the prospects before bounding into the back seat, and the mini gave a throaty roar as Alice screeched off. Jack thought he would liked to have had a conversation with Alice, sort of post-coastal, but was too scared, looked back to Martin, legs akimbo, claws out and thoroughly enjoying himself. Feckin" dogs!

In what seemed like a lifetime, but probably only a nanosecond, they pulled up outside The Mother Ship, completely the other end of the City. An attractive Hansel and Gretel, figurative pub from the outside, Victorian, glazed ceramic tiles, frosted windows, acid etched, but that was where the fairy-tale charm ended; this was a bandit pub, in bandit territory, and he was a cop Hansel and didn’t think going in with Gretel would help. Jack thought he must be mad; this was not the sort of place you go in if you were a copper, except Alice, who was Alfie Herring’s niece.

The Herrings were one of the big Pompey Families, related to the Splifs along the way somewhere. They were everywhere, and Jack began to rethink his concept of community policing, getting out meeting the people, but then he had in mind nice, civilised people, not Herberts. A bit like being a doctor. He always thought it would be okay treating nubile young women; after that, it went downhill, even if you could stand the sight of blood, and Jack couldn’t, even struggled with the odd magno. I wonder if my bike’s in here, he thought.

FamiliesAlice had parked and wafted across the road, feline, a sensual walk, pushing a barrage of intoxicating perfume. She patted Jack’s backside, ‘Come on,’ and breezed into the pub. Fearless Martin, the wonder police dog, was in like a rat up a drainpipe; the door slammed in Jack’s face. Thinking he may have lost the impact he wanted, he gingerly pushed open the door, his bum feeling odd, as did his kissed other cheeks.