Tainted Ground (2 page)

‘I haven't,' Patrick said. ‘Perhaps they've decided I ought to be in prison after all.'

He read in silence for a while – there was a lot of it – once glancing up fleetingly at the pair of us, eyes rather round, read on, gazed out of the window for a few seconds and then, when Elspeth and I were practically bursting with impatience, whistled softly.

‘Well?' I shrieked at him, causing a few nearby heads to turn.

Patrick cleared his throat. ‘Tell me – do I want to be a policeman?'

‘A policeman?' Elspeth and I chorused in unison.

We got into a huddle around the coffee pot in order to cease making an exhibition of ourselves and he read the whole thing out to us. Well boiled down, it was this. Following proposals set out in a government White Paper by the previous Home Secretary it had been decided to run pilot schemes allowing retired army officers and others in comparable services – Customs and Excise and the probation service – and jobs such as financial crime investigators and business executives with particular management skills to join the police at senior ranks. If the scheme was eventually formally adopted, police recruits would not necessarily have to start as constable and spend specified lengths of time at lower ranks before promotion.

There would be intensive training and, eventually, examinations. Candidates would have to show good aptitude: a previous senior position did not even guarantee a place on the pilot scheme, which would run initially for twelve months, following a probationary period of three. The writer of the letter was unusually frank and pointed out that not all senior police officers were convinced it was a good idea and the final decision would probably rest with them.

I ran my eye down the pay scales. ‘You'd be getting practically the same salary, even during the trial, as you were before.' I studied Patrick. ‘
Do
you want to be a policeman?'

‘Not if it's a desk job.'

‘You might have to not be fussy and settle for that,' Elspeth said, uncharacteristically brutal.

‘OK,' said Patrick, after due thought. ‘I'll go for it if I can do the probationary period somewhere in the West Country, preferably not far from here. You'll need a hand while Dad's ill.'

‘You mustn't run your life around your father and me,' Elspeth said.

He smiled upon her. ‘I can't keep travelling the length and breadth of the UK if they send me to Cumbria or East Anglia either. Those are my terms and I shall make them very clear,' he added regally, refolding the letter and putting it back in the envelope.

‘Didn't you join the police when you left school?' I asked. ‘And left because it wasn't exciting enough?'

‘When we lived near Plymouth just after John was ordained,' Elspeth said. ‘That's right. I have a photo of you in uniform standing next to a double-decker bus at the training school looking about fifteen. I must show it to the children.'

Patrick sighed.

Later, back at the rectory, he filled in the application form, enclosed a copy of his CV, which fortunately he had with him, and was going out to post it when he paused and said, ‘Why me, though? Why did this land on
my
doormat?'

‘Commander John Brinkley,' I said, looking up from the book I was reading.

‘Brinkley?'

‘He was the liaison officer between the Met and MI5 when you worked for D12, wasn't he? Not only that, I've thought for some time – after certain things had been smoothed out in odd ways – that your name is still wafting around favourably in the upper regions of New Scotland Yard. They want you. But you won't be working here, not after the initial period, and if it comes about at all, you'll be in London.'

Patrick gazed around. ‘Where the hell do you keep this crystal ball?'

When he had left the room Elspeth said, ‘What certain things sorted out, if you don't mind my asking?'

‘Oh, dead bodies in the course of our work and when we were helping James Carrick – things like that,' I replied lightly.

She stared at me. ‘Sometimes, Ingrid, I simply don't know whether the pair of you are having me on or not.'

One of the things uppermost in both Patrick's mind and mine was that if, due to his ill health, John had to retire soon, as obviously he must do eventually anyway, where would they live? The rectory came with the job; the stipend was modest so they could not have accrued sufficient savings with which to buy a retirement home now. It looked as though my desire to stay in the Devon cottage might just have to go out of the window in order that we could buy a larger house with an annexe or granny flat for them.
That
was if Patrick made a go of the job.

I forced myself out of this somewhat negative reverie with an effort. I would deal with one problem at a time.

John had his operation and on the Tuesday evening was well enough to receive more than his wife by way of visitors. Patrick had waved to him through the glass doorway when he had accompanied Elspeth late the previous day – she can drive but had obviously been glad of his support.

‘Everything's absolutely fine,' Patrick told his father. ‘A retired lay reader from Frome has volunteered to take Matins and a ditto Bishop of Plymouth who now lives in Norton St Philip is doing the rest. Members of the PCC are organizing nearly everything else.'

‘That's good of them,' John said, speaking very quietly as he was still weak. ‘Sorry about the old horse,' he went on. ‘Your mother told me.' There was the hint of a twinkle in his eyes. ‘I think she's quite relieved in a way, never liked horses – too big and dangerous.'

As we were leaving another visitor arrived.

‘James!' I exclaimed and kissed his cheek.

‘Thought I'd return the favour being as John practically lived at my hospital bedside for a week not all that long ago,' he said.

‘So you're fully fit?' Patrick enquired, a hand on the other's shoulder in man-to-man fashion.

‘Absolutely,' Carrick replied with a grin. ‘And back at work terrorizing the ungodly in this lovely city of ours. Is your father well enough to see folk?'

‘Yes, but he's tired so we didn't stay very long,' I said.

‘Know the feeling,' he said and with another smile for us both was gone.

‘What did you think about James?' I asked Patrick when we were in the car.

‘I'm not at all happy about him. Scots are only jolly like that when they're putting a brave face on things. I have an idea he's finding it a struggle to regain fitness.'

A reply to Patrick's application for a place on the pilot scheme came very quickly, almost uncannily so, making me wonder if my suspicions were correct. His own conditions or no, he was told to present himself, the day after next, at an address in London for a week-long course that would amount to a suitability test. Elspeth would have none of his reservations about leaving us, for as she said, John would be in hospital for at least another week after that and meantime she and I would have a ball. She ended up, when the time came, by practically shooing him out of the door.

This too, of course, was brave talk for John was not a young man and by no means yet out of danger. During the next few days there were a couple of scares, one complication sufficiently serious to necessitate us having to go to the hospital during the night. But John weathered the storm and following a request from Elspeth I played down the seriousness of the temporary setbacks when I spoke to Patrick on the phone.

‘He'd only have come rushing back, and to what purpose?' she rightly said, garden herbs in her hand as she prepared to make chicken soup to take in to the patient.

In a quiet moment I wondered which duties Patrick would be given, assuming he passed the preliminary aptitude tests. I almost wrote ‘attitude tests', for that would be where any pitfalls would lie. He was never the archetypal army officer, although such a thing might not exist in today's modern armed services. He is a man who has never posed, never yearned for the accessories of some of his colleagues, a couple of black Labradors and a Filofax; never drunk gin and tonic, preferring instead to have a beer and play darts in the public bar with the locals. He was in trouble countless times for doing things his own way – insubordination, they called it – and as he himself once said there were few carpets upon which he had not spent time. That he had reached the rank of lieutenant colonel had a lot to do with possessing the kind of charisma that ensured he could lead men into a black bog and safely out the other side, win the war and come home again, not to mention a downright scary ability to be instantly at home with whichever weapon was placed in his hands. And hey, hadn't James and Joanna Carrick bought him a Swedish throwing axe for Christmas as a joke only to have him fall on their necks with gratitude as he had always wanted one and would now be able to go to Sweden and take everyone on as it was a sort of national sport there?

I have not even touched on his proficiency in mimicry, almost essential when working undercover and the smile that would charm Sauron clean out of his tower.

I surmised that if he got his own way as to where he would be stationed for the probationary period he would have to report to Avon and Somerset Police HQ at Portishead in Bristol and take a turn in various departments savouring all aspects of the work. It occurred to me that no one had yet told Carrick what was going on. Surely there was really no point until it actually happened.

‘You know, I simply can't imagine Patrick as a policeman,' Elspeth said, all at once, her mind obviously on the same track as mine.

It was a pity that neither of us thought through what the downside of this new venture might be.

At least I could now devote myself to the screenplay when not helping Elspeth with chores. It transpired that she had many friends in the area, who took her off to their homes for coffee, bridge and supper parties, so I made myself at home with a makeshift desk in a box room used for storage and got to work. In between sessions I walked to get some fresh air and exercise, exploring the village and the surrounding maze of country lanes. At least the weather had improved, having turned cold, clear and breezy.

Patrick's nightly phone calls told of medicals, fitness tests – which rather surprised me – that had weeded out the candidates by about ten per cent, hours in classrooms, a written road-knowledge test and, in the latest call on the Thursday, that an hour or so in the morning had been spent square-bashing at Hendon Police College, which had caused another three people to walk out in disgust. This had been followed by a visit to a shooting range where, after throwing down a gentle challenge, he had out-scored the instructor.

‘Didn't you mind the square-bashing?' I asked.

‘Lord, no. It was only to get rid of those who thought they were too grand to have to do things like that. Besides which, you have to know how to carry yourself if you're attending passing-out parades. Oh, I'll be home for the weekend.'

‘Have you been accepted?'

‘No one's saying anything yet. Probably to keep everyone on a knife-edge. Some of the guys, ladies included, are all of a twitch about it, but what's the point? I got annoyed when the sprouts were overcooked two nights running, though.'

John, in his own wry words, was ‘delivered unto the bosom of his family' on the following Wednesday, arriving with written instructions concerning gentle exercises, especially walking, and a diet sheet that Elspeth took one look at and then tore to confetti.

‘It's for idiots who can't cook,' she snorted. ‘Canned soup rather than takeaways! Not too many chips and burgers! Easy on the fizzy drinks and Coke!' Eyes flashing, she regarded her husband, who was somewhat frailly inhabiting an armchair. ‘This evening you'll have fresh salmon with parsley sauce, new potatoes and broccoli – which is exactly the sort of thing all invalids should be eating.'

‘I'm allowed to have a small tot of whisky before dinner,' he told her, chin jutting.

‘I don't remember reading that,' she countered.

He wagged a finger at her. ‘You've just condemned the instructions utterly. And, my dear, I'm supposed to avoid all contentiousness.'

‘Whoever wrote that wouldn't even know what the word meant,' Elspeth said triumphantly but she was smiling as she left the room.

Patrick and I had spent the weekend generally making ourselves useful, and early on the Monday he had set off for Portishead, just as I had guessed he might, but still with no confirmation that he had been accepted into the scheme. As far as my work was concerned I was galloping through the screenplay, which actually involved rewriting my own work of several years previously, bringing it up to date and making improvements as I went along. Recent involvement in the making of a film was proving to be a huge help.

Then, on the Thursday, Patrick came home shortly before dinner with an indiscernible look on his face.

‘I'm in,' he said simply. ‘And start Monday morning.'

Everyone offered him their congratulations.

To me, Patrick said, ‘You were right, John Brinkley's involved, he rang me and broke the good news before I heard officially.'

‘You don't seem to be as pleased as you might be,' I said.

‘I'm to report to Manvers Street police station, Bath. I have to say I wasn't expecting it.'

‘But that's wonderful!' Elspeth cried. ‘You'll be right on the doorstep.'

‘Does James know?' I asked.

‘Yes, he does. And I should imagine he's not too happy about it.'

‘But why not?' Elspeth wanted to know. ‘The pair of you are good friends.'

‘He'll assume those in charge don't think he's up to the job yet,' Patrick told her. ‘But it's worse than that. Because of my previous army rank I'm classed as acting detective superintendent.'

‘That's disastrous!' I said. ‘It'll be bad enough to have you parachuted in like that but as his superior …' Words failed me.