Читать книгу Specials: Based on the BBC TV Drama Series: The complete novels in one volume - Brian Degas - Страница 21

Noreen was deep in the invoices and account ledgers when her husband came into the office, hands black with grease, headed for the small annexe where he could wash them.

‘One of your fancy ladies called.’ She raised her voice sufficiently so he could hear. ‘One Anjali Shah. Special, she said she was.’ Momentarily she lowered her voice. ‘Aren’t we all, I told her.’ Then she shouted to Loach once again. ‘Anyway, she can’t make tonight.’

He reappeared, drying his hands, his face as long as the Queen’s speech. Noreen began again in a normal tone.

‘She’s got family problems. I think I got that right. But I didn’t like to pry,’ she added. ‘One woman’s misfortune is another man’s one-night stand, as they say.’

Loach slumped down at his desk, looking glum indeed. ‘Oh very funny, Noreen, Bloody headaches is all I get. With this kind of pressure, you’d think I was the SDO and not just the SO.’

Noreen concurred with bitter sympathy. ‘Not to mention S.O.D … R.A.T … and S.H. –’

‘I get the picture,’ Loach surrendered. It wasn’t worth fighting about.

Before she could gloat in her little triumph of the moment, the outer door of the office opened, and young Kevin stumbled in, running at the mouth.

‘I tried to tell her, Mr Loach, but she wouldn’t …’

Before he could complete his explanation, Kevin was bundled aside by the mammoth hand of an enormous woman – Big Jess. She barrelled her way past him as an elephant would a wayward branch while trudging through the jungle.

‘That’s okay, Kevin,’ Loach reassured the lad, sending him off to his chores.

As the young assistant moved out of her path, Big Jess made her move on Loach, her gargantuan breasts threatening to arrive well in advance of the main body. Loach held up his thumb as if to ward off vampires in general and this oversexed succubus in particular.

‘Take it easy now, Jess. I don’t want my thumb bitten again in another wrestling match.’ Especially just when he had got over the first round.

When Big Jess laughed it seemed as if the desks and even the breeze blocks trembled. ‘I’m not here to get even.’ She glanced at Noreen, pointing to a light bruise on her jaw-line. ‘He did that. Arresting me for drunk and disorderly. I was so Brahms and Liszt I didn’t know I was chewing his thumb.’ She shrugged it off. ‘Anyway, it only took a couple o’ tricks to pay the fine I got.’ On second thought, she shook her head. ‘No, I like a man who can fight back.’

A grin started to curl the corner of her mouth. ‘Mind you, if I’d been sober …’ To illustrate her point, she pushed two fingers forward like a prong up close to his pupils. ‘… I’d’ve given him eye surgery.’

‘Fascinating,’ Noreen mused, her voice dripping with sarcasm.

Big Jess thumbed at Noreen, then turned to Loach. ‘Can she take a hike?’

‘Uh … this is my wife … Noreen.’

‘Oh …’ Big Jess was a bit taken aback. ‘That’s all right then.’ She turned to Noreen with a friendly smile. ‘I’m Big Jess.’

Noreen was about to make another comment, but Big Jess had already returned her attention to Loach. ‘No … reason I’m here is I need a favour from you.’

If possible, Loach became even more uncomfortable. ‘A favour? From me?’

Big Jess was rubbing her jaw, as if contemplating theoretical physics. ‘I think you owe me one …’ Then she deflected the focus away from herself. ‘It’s not for meself. Understand? It’s for Jackie.’ She took Noreen into her confidence. ‘She’s on the game like me,’ she winked. ‘Know what I mean?’

Rather than explain, she bawled in the basic direction of the door. ‘Jackie? Get in here.’

Through the door edged a slim woman with a fragile prettiness and pale complexion. She was probably a great success in her field but right now Jackie was evidently one very scared prostitute. Protectively, Big Jess settled her in the chair beside Loach’s desk.

‘You sit there, luv … Just explain it like I said.’

Big Jess assumed a mountainous position behind her. Conscious of the looming presence of the Amazon to her rear, as well as the complete strangers in front of her, Jackie spoke up hesitantly.

‘I’ve got to get a message to somebody … And I can’t do it myself.’

‘Too bloody true,’ Big Jess confirmed, encouraging her to continue.

‘And Jess said you could help me. It’s a Detective Inspector …’

‘Dutrow. That’s ’is name,’ Big Jess offered, trying to be helpful.

‘Jess said you could get a message to him for me …’

‘Sure,’ Loach agreed, picking up the telephone on his desk. ‘What’s his number? I’ll get him, and you can speak to him.’

A solid lump of meat, familiar to Loach as Big Jess’s right hand, firmly pressed Loach’s hand – clutching, then releasing the ’phone back down.

‘Wait,’ suggested Big Jess. ‘Listen to her.’ Loach was inclined to comply with this request.

Looking down and wringing her hands, Jackie struggled to find the right words. ‘You see, I’ve been of some help in the past …’

‘She’s a Police Informer,’ Big Jess said simply.

‘Je-ss!’ Jackie pleaded with her to be more discreet.

‘Well, it’s right, innit? It’s not your fault you put your leg over the wrong bloke, Jackie.’

The hostile looks they exchanged spoke volumes.

‘Trouble is,’ Jackie confided, ‘I’ve found out there’s some scumbag in Dutrow’s division selling information to Diesel …’

Big Jess stepped in once more to expand and elucidate. ‘A real nasty turd, is Diesel. He’s a pimp who’s inna everything – drugs … you name it. Fancies Jackie rotten …’

That provoked a sharp response from Jackie. ‘Oh yeah, he fancies me. With a razor in one hand and you know what in the other. He fancies me all right.’

Out of the corner of his eye, Loach noticed Noreen both fascinated and cringing at the same time.

Big Jess picked up the loose ends of the story. ‘She wants out, but she’s got something heavy on Diesel that Dutrow’ll pay a lot to get.’

Jackie squirmed in her chair, apparently with some concerns regarding the policy being unveiled and interpreted by Big Jess, who sensed her discomfort and tried to bolster her self-assurance.

‘Well … it’s only right you get some big ones in your bin. The Police has got enough freebies out of you, gal, as it is.’

Loach was still trying to make some basic sense of it all. ‘Are you saying there’s somebody at Dutrow’s division who’s passing on Police information … taking money from this … Diesel? And that’s why you can’t approach Dutrow direct?’ The plausibility of her story was hard to swallow.

But Big Jess had no doubts whatsoever. ‘That’s it. Right on the money. Figure it for yourself,’ she challenged him. ‘Wouldn’t she look a real tart standing outside a police station?’

‘I can risk anything,’ Jackie warned vehemently. ‘If Diesel got a sniff of it …’ She shivered at the thought. ‘No. I want out.’ She looked up to Loach. ‘And I want Dutrow to see me at the usual time tonight. Awright?’

Loach’s eyes connected with hers. ‘I can try. But why come to me?’

Again Big Jess answered for her. ‘Because I told her you was straight. And that you’re not a real policeman …’

Involuntarily Loach winced, and Big Jess must have noticed.

‘… Well, you are a policeman, but you’re more like us, if you see what I mean.’ This time Noreen winced. ‘And you can talk to them more than we can …’ That didn’t help much either.

‘Anyway, I couldn’t think of anyone else.’ Aha, the real reason. ‘And Jackie can’t chance it on the ’phone, cos she don’t know who the motor-mouth is down there, or anywhere else come to think of it.’ She paused to collect her thoughts, such as they were. ‘You get hold of Dutrow, personal-like, and give him Jackie’s message. Right?’

A sudden rat-a-tat on the door interrupted and startled them. All heads instantly swivelled toward the ominous sound. Then weird, alternating, high-pitched voices spoke through the crack in the door.

‘Knock, knock. Who’s there? Foxy.’

A ridiculous puppet poked its head around the opening door, obviously soon to be followed by Freddy Calder.

‘Foxy who?’

The rest of Freddy popped into the office singing the punchline. ‘Fox ’e’s a jolly good fella …’ He laughed at his own joke. ‘It’s me, folks!’ Then he saw the visitors, and stepped back in embarrassment and wonder. ‘Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t know you had …’

Not giving him a second to finish his apology, Big Jess bounced up, pulling Jackie to her feet as well. ‘That’s all right. We was just going.’ As they crossed to the door, Big Jess stopped to tickle Foxy under the chin (or finger, as it were).

‘He’s a real sexpot, innee?’

Gratefully Freddy let them pass, but seeing the way they were dressed he simply couldn’t resist pushing a bit of business. ‘I don’t suppose either of you ladies would be interested in the latest in lingerie? At a special discount. The finest underwear a woman can put on,’ he teased.

‘Sorry, luv,’ Big Jess consoled him. ‘Most of the time we’re taking it off.’ They made their way out.

When their backs were turned Freddy did a comic double-take. Loach caught sight of Noreen’s face, lacking any sense of humour, and tried to stall the words he knew would soon be coming from her lips.

Yet he spoke hesitantly, at least careful to respect her sense of decency. ‘Big Jess is pretty forceful. She’s … well, like she said … a prostitute.’

‘I guess someone has to do it, Loach,’ she said.

Apparently oblivious to their banter, Freddy was in the corner at the low filing cabinet that doubled as a table for the filtered coffee-making machine. Pouring himself a coffee from the beaker, he swallowed a good belt, then muttered to himself. ‘It’s only eleven o’clock, and I’m legless.’ Looking down at the puppet, he answered himself in Foxy’s squeaky voice.

‘That’s okay for you to say. I’m always legless!’

Then Freddy faced the Loaches with a repentant yet bull-in-a-china-shop smile. ‘Hey! I’m sorry ’bout crashing in like that.’

Noreen looked dryly over to Loach as if to say: Does he ever do anything else? But Loach had other things on his mind.

‘Forget it. Look … I hate asking this, Freddy. I know this is your evening off …’

Freddy piped in, speaking in Foxy’s voice. ‘Then don’t ask.’

Loach had to remember to use his normal voice rather than talk back like Mickey Mouse. ‘I wouldn’t ordinarily, but we’re really short. Anjali’s had to pull out …’

It was almost a shock to hear Freddy as an adult, worry and weariness in his low voice just like everyone else. ‘Oh, boy. Am I gonna be in deep trouble.’

‘Heavy date, Freddy?’ Noreen needled.

The burden weighing upon him, Freddy thought to himself. ‘I guess you could say that.’

Loach understood that somewhere in his world Freddy was making a personal sacrifice. ‘Thanks, Freddy.’