Blackwater (DI Nick Lowry) (8 page)

-14-

6.50 p.m., Saturday, Great Tey

‘You’re late,’ Jacqui admonished as Lowry skulked into the house. She didn’t really give a fig that it was ten to seven – the taxi wasn’t booked until seven, anyway – but finding fault with Nick was a useful way of assuaging her guilt about her affair with Paul.

‘Sorry, it was Sparks. He, um . . .’ Lowry was clearly shattered, she could see that, but, nevertheless, she couldn’t help herself.

‘Huh? Don’t mumble, Nick. I can’t hear a word you’re saying.’

Trish sashayed into the hallway. ‘Hi, Nick,’ she purred, stepping up and kissing him lightly on the corner of his mouth. ‘Catch any baddies?’ Trish Vane was one of Jacqui’s oldest friends – they’d known each other since school – and was an outrageous flirt. Cute and curvy, Trish was very attractive to men, and had, a couple of years back, confided when drunk that she fancied Nick. Jacqui had laughed it off but was secretly proud that Nick still had that allure. She’d even teased Nick about it once, back then . . .

‘Right, we’re out of here. Maybe you should . . .’ She was on the cusp of saying, ‘spend some quality time with Matthew,’ but halted herself in front of Trish. Her son was in the lounge watching television.

‘Should what?’

The doorbell went. ‘Nothing; it can wait. That’ll be the taxi.’

Lowry stood there, not sure what to say.

‘There’s some macaroni cheese left over in the fridge you can reheat.’ Jacqui unhooked her handbag from the banister. ‘Oh, one thing. That young soldier, he wanted to talk to you again.’

‘Really? What about?’

‘He didn’t say. But when he discovered his pal was dead, he had some sort of fit and had to be sedated,’ she said sharply.

‘A fit?’

‘Yes, a fit.’ Jacqui was on the doorstep.

‘Did he say anything?’

‘He was in shock, Nick. His friend was dead.’

‘But did he say anything?’

‘He was shouting, I don’t know what . . . Jesus, Nick, his best friend had just died.’

‘Wait – this is important. He’s a soldier, Jacqs – news of a pal’s death wouldn’t usually require sedation. I mean, those boys have just fought a war
—
’

‘I just said,
I don’t know
. The boy was in shock. Damn it! You’re so fucking insensitive!’ She spat the words out and slammed the door.

Lowry stood alone in hallway. Her unexpected flare-up had taken the last of his energy. He moved to the lounge; Matthew had left the room.

On hearing the door slam, his son had taken himself off upstairs. He would be thoroughly absorbed in the intricacies of Second World War dive-bomber markings by now so, for the first time today, Lowry could relax in his own company. He switched the oven on and slid the macaroni cheese in. Any resentment about not spending the night with his wife had been swiftly despatched by her razor-sharp tongue; he was grateful for the peace and quiet, intent on a night off from Colchester and all those who populated her, living or dead.

He flipped the top off a Pils bottle and pressed play on the VCR. Time to catch up on
The Gentle Touch.
He wasn’t a big TV-watcher, preferring the grander atmosphere of the silver screen, but, like most coppers, he had an addiction to telly cops, and to Jill Gascoine in particular. For Lowry, she was the sexiest woman on the planet. Even her dodgy outfits couldn’t dampen his obsession. He thought shoulder pads were the single most unflattering aberration in fashion history (but then, what did he know about fashion? He still favoured suits cut to 1964 styles). Even worse was the current fad for permed hair, which had even crossed over to blokes. Jill had dark, wavy hair, which he assumed was naturally curly, but even if it was permed he didn’t care – she was perfect, like a Venus or a Diana. Needless to say, he kept these thoughts to himself. He could just imagine the ridicule if he shared them at the station, and he had to keep some things sacred from Kenton. As the titles rolled, accompanied by the soporific, siren-like music, he put his feet on the pouffe and took a swig from the bottle of beer.

After the first episode, and having eaten his pasta, he paused the machine to check on his son upstairs. He found the boy was reading in bed. Lowry complimented his son on his progress with the Airfix kit, before wishing him good night and switching off the bedroom light. Lowry then watched a further episode, by which time he felt he was restored enough to engage with his new passion: birds. This required an element of reading around the subject – when best to see them, and so forth – so he went off to bed with Tony Soper’s
Bird Table Book.
The Lowrys’ house had a deep back garden that backed on to farmland; he was confident he could lure a few species on to a bird table and maybe to use a feeder. Like many things, it made sense to start at home.

But just as he put his foot on the first step of the staircase, the telephone rang. It was ten fifteen, so it could only be Queen Street on the other end. His mind switched on, instantly rushing back through the day, and fuck! He realized he’d clean forgotten to call Robinson for his report on the body on the Strood. He padded slowly in his socks towards the small table in the hallway, hoping the phone would stop. Of course, it didn’t.

‘Lowry.’

‘We need you in, I’m afraid, inspector.’ It wasn’t the pathologist but the tired voice of Sergeant Barnes.

‘Why? What’s up?’

‘It’s kicking off in the high street.’

‘What?’

‘Fighting – townies and squaddies. Red Caps tried to intervene and have made it ten times worse. We need all hands on deck.’

‘Excellent. Sparks?’

‘He’s at a ball in Chelmsford.’

‘Of course he is.’ He rubbed his stubble wearily. That was right: Sparks was getting his nuts squeezed by Merrydown at some official shindig.

‘Okay, give me fifteen minutes. I’ll have to bring Matthew. Jacqui’s out.’

‘Sorry, sir.’

‘Not your problem.’ He replaced the receiver, slipped on his shoes and donkey jacket and dashed upstairs. He crept quietly into his son’s room, not wishing to startle him, and gently shook his shoulder, but Matt didn’t stir. Lowry picked up the extra blanket at the foot of the bed, pulled back the covers and wrapped it around his son before lifting him, with some difficulty, off the bed. He was small for his age but a dead weight when fast asleep.

Carefully, he made his way down the stairs and out of the front door. He lay the sleeping boy in the back of the Saab and shut the car door as quietly as he could, saying softly, ‘Another night in the cells for you, son. Sorry.’

10.15 p.m., North Hill, Colchester

Jacqui downed her drink and slid the empty glass across the bar. She felt free and on top of the world. The barman gave her a wry smile. He was a bit of all right, she thought. She and Trish had met up with two other girls, and the four of them had decided to try the new ‘wine bar’, Tramps, on Middleborough, at the bottom of North Hill. Duran Duran was on a bit too much and a bit too loud, and there were mirrors everywhere, which Jacqui could do without, but apart from that it was okay: smart without being poncey. The only downside was the ten-minute trudge up to the high street; a real pain in heels.

‘What shall we do now?’ Trish asked loudly.

‘Go back up to town!’ said Trish’s sister, Emma, who was flushed and glassy-eyed. ‘It’s dead in here.’

‘Agreed?’ asked Trish.

‘S’pose so,’ replied Jacqui reluctantly, eyeing the barman. ‘We’ll be back, though!’ she exclaimed as she jumped off her stool.

The fourth woman, Kerry, was a friend of Trish’s but also a staff nurse on Constable Ward. Jacqui had a sense that Kerry was being slightly off with her. Did she know about Paul? Possibly. Well, fuck it, Kerry was clearly no angel herself, given that she’d been chatting up some fella in tight slacks for the last ten minutes. He was dressed smartly, but the shaven head and muscular build suggested that he was a soldier.

‘The trouble with the no-jeans policy is that it’s harder to separate the wheat from the chaff,’ she smirked to Trish. ‘Any old scumbug or squaddie can slip on a pair of Farah’s.’

‘And what’s wrong with that?’ came a Northern accent from behind her. Jacqui turned to see the fella Kerry had been flirting with bearing down on her. A squaddie, no doubt about it.

‘Why, nothing, hon.’ She smiled. ‘It’s just harder to find a bit of rough, know what I mean?’

-15-

10.20 p.m., Saturday, Chelmsford Town Hall

Sparks was bored. He could handle consecutive nights out pretty well on the whole, but this charity gala banquet stuffed full of Essex bigwigs in penguin suits was tedious beyond belief. They were in the draughty town hall, which had all the atmosphere of an aircraft hangar, and some old duffer across the table was dribbling into Antonia’s face. She looked non-plussed.

They’d had only the starters but already his cummerbund was giving him gyp. It was going to be a long evening. The imminent arrival of Assistant Chief Constable Merrydown should have been enough to keep him on his toes, but too much booze had taken the edge off. The ACC herself had been delayed; why, he didn’t know. Someone from the town hall was burbling in Sparks’s ear about whether the police should be armed: a subject he could handle on autopilot.

The seat on Sparks’s right remained empty as the main course was finally brought out. Merrydown had yet to show. A waiter materialized and promptly topped up the wine – at least they kept it flowing freely, which was something. He gestured for the waiter to fill the glass at the place next to him.

‘Yes, I quite understand the concern – the increasing flow of automatic pistols from the Continent is a problem. God help us if they ever build a tunnel,’ said Sparks airily as he picked up his absent neighbour’s glass and drank heavily. ‘Although we’d be overrun with rabies before anything else.’

While the elderly windbag responded with more drivel, this time about ‘ghastly Europeans’, he glanced across the hall, and there she was, a familiar slender woman in her mid-forties with chestnut hair, elegantly gliding across the room. Sparks drank hastily from his boss’s glass, but Merrydown was in no hurry, stopping at every table to say a few words and bestow her immaculate white smile, which complemented an almost Mediterranean complexion and Roman nose.

Sparks had mixed feelings about his superior. He considered her, in his own words, ‘a ball-breaker of the highest order’, but she was also fiercely intelligent. As a man of average intellect and questionable devotion to his job, these qualities alone should’ve struck the fear of God into him but, on the contrary, he rose to the challenge: the competitor in him was constantly striving to stay one step ahead . . .

‘Ma’am, there you are.’

‘Stephen, sorry I’m late.’

He rose, gesturing obsequiously for her to sit down before retaking his own seat. She eyed the empty glasses. ‘I see you’ve started without me.’ She smiled. ‘I don’t blame you. These things
can
be rather a bore.’

Sparks apologized and summoned the waiter to refill the glasses once more.

‘Now, then.’ She again smiled that immaculate white smile. Her dark kohl eyeliner seemed too exotic by far for the police, let alone for Chelmsford town hall. ‘What’s been going on?’

‘Nothing, ma’am. Nothing to worry about.’

‘That’s not what my spies tell me.’

‘Spies?’

‘Colchester is an important town. The military are, as you know, regarded as heroes. I hope the accident in Castle Park is not going to present problems.’

‘Certainly not, ma’am. I know how to handle the military.’

‘Yes, I’m aware of that – but there’s more to good relations than boxing bouts.’

Her dismissive tone confirmed to Sparks that she had no idea what she was talking about.

‘Of course there is, ma’am; but it’s a different world to . . .’ He gesticulated towards the candlelit hall.

‘Oh, yes, I don’t doubt that, out there in the boondocks, it’s very different.’ She raised her glass. ‘Cheers.’

‘Cheers.’

‘But although it’s the back of beyond, I see your annual crime stats still managed to make it to County. I appreciate the prompt filing.’

‘We are nothing if not ruthlessly efficient. Must be our military neighbours rubbing off on us,’ he joked.

‘Indeed, but if only you were as successful at policing as they are at fighting wars.’ She took a sip from her glass. ‘Your clean-up record for 1982 is the worst in the county.’

10.30 p.m., Queen Street HQ

Lowry was at Queen Street inside twenty minutes. Though Matthew was now awake, it was quicker to carry him down to the cells, as he’d done for many years. He acknowledged the duty PC at the far end, who nodded towards the cell adjacent to him. Protocol dictated that the furthest cells were always kept empty the longest, for reasons Lowry couldn’t recall, other than it enabled the night shift to doze in peace. And, for that reason, Matthew would more than likely be able to sleep, too.

He pulled back the coarse-woven coverlet on the low cell bed and lay the boy down, covering him with his own blanket before doubling up with the blanket there. (It got cold down here, Lowry knew.)

‘Don’t know when I’ll be back,’ he said to the PC, taking one of his cigarettes. ‘By all accounts, there’s a riot in the high street.’

‘No probs, sir; I’m here till six.’ He yawned.

‘Cheers. I’ll probably bed down here myself later. Looks pretty cosy.’

No matter how many times he’d done this with Matt – and, since the boy had been two, there’d been many – he still felt crap about it and made lame jokes in recompense. The duty constable, all of twenty, probably thought him an unusual father. Lowry made his way up to the ground floor. The night-desk sergeant greeted him with a nod.

‘What’s the situation?’

‘Not good. At first, a solider punches a civilian in the Lamb. The civvy is left out cold, slumped in the bogs, while the squaddie makes off to the Wagon and Horses.’ The Lamb was in the middle of the high street, one of the busiest places in town on a Saturday night, and the Wagon and Horses, a well known squaddie haunt, at the top of North Hill. ‘Next thing, a bunch of locals storm the Wagon and Horses looking for the chap, just as two Red Caps get there
—
’

Lowry could picture the rest. ‘Okay. Better get a move on,’ he said.

‘Take care, inspector.’

10.35 p.m., Colchester town centre

As Lowry rounded the corner on to the high street, chanting greeted him long before he could see anything. He passed two uniforms shoving a couple of handcuffed teenagers along the street and quickened his pace. The noise grew louder and, gradually, he could make out a bunch of figures moving frenetically at the far end of the street. A bottle broke on the pavement in front of him as a gang of youths tore by, then they veered off down a side alley. The dark forms of uniformed police officers came into view. ‘Jesus!’ he exclaimed, catching sight of a retreating PC with a bloodied face.

‘Glass caught me, guv,’ explained the constable apologetically, blood pouring from a cut above his left eye.

‘What the fuck is going on?’

‘We had it contained until the Red Caps turned up. They started laying it on a bit thick, sir.’

Another bottle smashed, closer this time, spraying Lowry’s feet. ‘Go get that cut seen to,’ he said, sidestepping the shattered glass.

Just then, two black Commer vans with sirens blaring shot past, driving in the middle of the road, one with a mounted spotlight. Reinforcements from County. This was turning ugly.

He was now in the thick of things, at the point where the high street met Head Street, near where the trouble had started. All around him, people were brawling. Others spilled out from pub doorways, yelling encouragement or insults. It was difficult to work out who was on what side in the fight but, given the spark that had set things off, this was clearly a reprisal for the Castle accident. In front of him three youths in denims had a Red Cap down on the ground and were booting him mercilessly. They were dragged off by two uniformed PCs. To his left, two men with crew cuts were shoved up against a parked car by a bunch of braying yobs. The arrival of the MPs on the scene had clearly exacerbated matters, and outside the Lamb was the biggest scene of trouble – a stand-off between Red Caps and police on one side and a gang of chanting youths on the other. It was poised to get nastier.

*

Jacqui’s heart was pumping nineteen to the dozen as she and her friends walked briskly up North Hill towards the high street, partly from exertion – going uphill in heels was an effort – and partly from embarrassment. The soldier in Tramps wine bar who had taken exception to her comments had turned the mockery on her, deriding her as ‘overdressed mutton’ and ‘out for it’ because she was wearing an above-the-knee skirt in close to freezing temperatures. The humiliation, combined with the chill air – her legs were already numb – had sobered her up with a jolt.

‘Are they following us?’ Trish asked anxiously.

‘Don’t mind if they are,’ said Kerry, a spiky edge to her voice. Jacqui shot her daggers and caught a deep-red-lipstick smirk in return.

‘I don’t know about that,’ Trish muttered. ‘One of them was pretty hacked off.’

‘I wonder why.’ Kerry sniffed.

From behind them came a loud rallying cry and the sound of leather soles on the pavement. ‘Jesus Christ!’ Jacqui hissed under her breath.

‘Look!’ Kerry squealed, pointing ahead. ‘Party on!’

At the junction of North Hill, Head Street and the high street there appeared to be people dancing in the road. With cheers of encouragement, the soldiers in slacks from the bar ran past to join the crowd.

‘Wait!’ said Jacqui. ‘That’s no party. That’s one massive punch-up.’ Loud chanting rose up from behind them. ‘And we’re smack in the middle of it.’

Behind them, more people filled the road, as the pubs began to empty. The women had no escape. Jacqui clasped her hands to her ears to block out the shouting and to protect her head from the blows as she was knocked on one side then the other, after a moment loosing her footing and falling to the ground.

‘Not so cocky now, are you?’ a voice above her asked.

Blinking rapidly, she looked up to see the soldier from Tramps. ‘Come on, get up,’ he said.

Roughly, he pulled her to her feet and shoved her against a shop window. She could smell his boozy breath. Where were her friends? A hand clasped her breast and panic rose sharply in her throat.

‘Come on; in a skirt that short you must be gagging for it.’

Jacqui struggled to try and free herself, but his grip was iron. ‘Get off me!’ she screamed, kicking him hard in the shin and losing her shoe in the process. Incensed, the soldier slapped her. She was stunned. All around her, people were fighting. No one noticed what was happening to her.

‘Come on; a quick one round the back – said you wanted a bit of rough.’

Jacqui tilted her head up towards him. He was almost a foot taller than she was. She held his gaze for a moment, then, with a deft flick of her tongue, she spat in his face.

‘Slag!’ he spat.

In an instant, Jacqui was winded and on the ground. Fighting for breath, she knew she was in trouble; biting her bottom lip, she braced herself for pain. She shrank on the pavement as he positioned to kick her. In her panic, everything switched to slow motion. And as it did, the enormous foot aimed at her face changed direction and missed, going high. Her attacker went over backwards and disappeared from view. A voice coming through a megaphone and a bright light flashing past the shop windows burst through her inertia. Another figure appeared, as if from nowhere, coming close, blocking the coloured light. She cowered and tried to scrabble away, across the pavement, but found herself up against another shop front.

‘See what happens when you hit the town?’ said a voice she knew, and a hand reached down to help her. The police spotlight gave an almost angelic tint to the man’s profile.

Nick pulled Jacqui to standing. Regaining her poise, she straightened her skirt and pulled her hair back from her face.

‘You okay?’ He tried to look her in the eye.

‘I need a drink,’ she said sullenly, unable to meet his gaze.

‘I think not. You’re going home.’

‘Where’s Matthew?’

‘At the station – I’ll have someone there run you home.’ Her husband’s voice was soft, controlled amidst the chaos. She was aware of her friends standing behind her, not sure what to do.

‘I’m fine, Nick, really.’ She didn’t know whether she was fine or not – she was shaken, certainly, but wanted the situation over and to be away from here. Away from Nick, too. And, yes, she really did need a drink. Who could go home now, after all this? There were people thronging everywhere. The air was alive with sirens and shouts. Sod New Year’s – this was her night out. And that fella wouldn’t have done anything to her, right there in the street . . . would he, seriously? She adjusted her red leather jacket and flicked back her hair. She smiled weakly. ‘Really.’

Nick clutched her tightly to him. ‘Go home,’ he said quietly. Even in this flashing, obscure light, in the midst of the chaos of the town, she could tell he meant it.

‘Okay,’ she said, barely above a whisper.