neither here nor there. You’re not here to play games. Get stuck in!’
Meanwhile, the mob surrounding them had dropped all pretence of aggression. Newspapers magically appeared, now being read by the former hooligans lolling in their seats. The woman Special had been restored to her feet. Someone tossed Redwood his cap.
Unable to ignore his education as a solicitor, however, Redwood was not entirely satisfied with the methods he was being taught, a few knotty questions still lingering in his mind.
‘Shouldn’t we first establish … uh … ascertain who’s responsible? We don’t know who’s guilty and who’s innocent.’
Sergeant Crombie did not seem overly concerned with the finer points of the law at a moment when mob violence could be imminent. ‘Ascertain? You’ve already ascertained, and you’ll get a broken bonce if you ascertain any more. Maybe I should remind you … uh …?’ He was searching for the name.
‘John Redwood.’
‘Special Constable Redwood … of what goes on in the real world.’ As Sergeant Crombie held up and counted his stubby fingers, many of the off-duty police veterans in the mob joined him in reciting the code of the west.
‘Ask ’em … tell ’em … lift ’em.’
Sergeant Crombie turned and addressed the chanting mob sweetly. ‘With your permission, gentlemen …’ Then he turned on Redwood, and the hard edge returned to his voice.
‘Now let’s get at ’em, shall we?’
That attitude, John Redwood contemplated and remembered, personified the tone and spirit that pervaded the entire training regimen prescribed for the recruited civilians who volunteered to serve as Specials. They weren’t given any special treatment, at least in the sense of mollycoddling. Yet they were given very special treatment in being afforded the same training opportunities as the PCs: what the police constables had to do, the Specials had to do.
Redwood specifically remembered the hardships of strenuous physical conditioning. Not that he was in such bad shape, but he felt all of his 42 years after several laps around the grassy perimeter of the running track. He recalled the camaraderie among these volunteers, when one of them had faltered on the track and others had given him a helping hand and encouraging words to keep going; and when the same had nearly happened to him, as he was winded and barely ploughing along under the stress: the encouragement had been for him that time. As a private, reticent, even shy man, to whom social relations and friendship had never come easily, he was getting something more out of this experience than he had expected, and it was making a deep and lasting impression on him.
Certainly he was learning skills he had never expected to acquire or need in his profession, such as how to apprehend a hostile suspect, or how to disarm a potential attacker. For a time he had been confused about such technical issues as whether his adversary’s arm should be bent up in front of or behind the body. Once he had stepped forward to face the instructor, confidently ready to spring into action and demonstrate the manoeuvre he had been shown, only to be sent flying effortlessly by the instructor.
All this in preparing for the worst, as Sergeant Crombie constantly reminded them. ‘Just because you’ve been vetted by the police, in your homes and workplaces, doesn’t mean you’re fit to undertake the duties and responsibilities of being a Special Constable,’ he had said, simultaneously warning them about and explaining the rationale for the extensive training, mental as well as physical. ‘You’ll learn what it’s like out there on the streets. And we’ll learn whether you’re competent to wear the uniform. Because you’re there to assist the police, in the full knowledge that you’re under their command, control and discipline at all times.’
Those were the kinds of ideas Redwood could respect, and wanted to hear. At least that’s what he had thought prior to one particular afternoon when he and several other Specials were in a classroom with Sergeant Crombie. On the blackboard behind him were some of the buzz-words relating to the Specials under the heading: Duties and Responsibilities. Below that were the words Code of Practice, and under that, indented to the right, each on a separate line, such phrases as Stop and Search, Obstruction, Restraint, Intimidation. Sergeant Crombie had referred to them by pointing his thumb at the blackboard over his shoulder.
‘Okay, that’s the theory,’ he had said. ‘But out on the street nobody’s gonna make any allowances because you’re a Special. The fuzz is the fuzz … even though you don’t get paid for it.’
A cheeky-faced young woman held up her hand, and Crombie had nodded for her to proceed. ‘Sir? I thought we got a quid a year?’
Although her observation tickled the Specials in the classroom, Sergeant Crombie appeared soured by her notion. ‘I’ve always thought that too generous.’ Polite laughter greeted his rejoinder.
‘But you’d better be damned sure you know why you’ve signed up to be a Special.’ At once, Redwood had never seen him more serious (though Crombie was a teacher who never even smiled). ‘And, of course, all of you sitting there think you know.’ Before they had a chance to think about it, he pounced. ‘Hands up, the ones who want to help society … clean up the streets … save the delinquent …?’
One of every pair of hands was raised high in the air, including Redwood’s.
The singular motivation for his wanting to become a Special was a painful memory. It was over a year ago, two years after his wife, Anthea, had died of a cerebral haemorrhage at the age of 36. At the time he had thought her death – so swift, so harsh – was the worst moment of his life. But then their son Simon, their only child, just 16, had been mugged. Pursued by a gang of young thugs, trapped on a pedestrian bridge over an inner city freeway, Simon had fallen from the walkway. His back had been broken, he’d suffered severe head injuries, it was touch-and-go whether he would survive. As a father called by police to identify the shattered body in the hospital bed, his first feeling had been pure hatred, a raging fury that God had singled him out again. He would have turned his back on life had his son died that night.
Confined to a wheelchair, Simon continued to suffer from the after-effects, emotional as well as physical, of the mugging, as did his father, Yet his father was an adult, capable of taking responsibility, and taking action, and he was not held back by a wheelchair. He felt that he must use his hatred, channel and focus it on something positive, something that would demonstrate – in actions rather than words – his protest against the savages, and the savagery, guilty of crippling his son. Something had to be done, he told himself. Some good had to come from this evil, some way to right the wrongs, to stand up for justice and humanity and life itself at a time when they were being threatened. And so he had joined the Specials …
‘Liars!’ shouted Sergeant Crombie, so rudely interrupting the noble thoughts of the volunteer peacekeepers and holy crusaders sitting in the classroom before him. For once in a lifetime he smiled at them, even as their smiles disappeared, and he cheerfully bullied them in a bantering tone.
‘Deep down … don’t you want to tell people what to do? Be Jack-the-Lad in a uniform? Be the Last of the Vigilantes?’
To his chagrin, Redwood realized that he, too, had a hidden agenda. Not that he really saw himself as an avenging angel, but he had often thought, in his words, ‘by being out there, I might see something, hear something,’ and often wondered what would happen if he were ever to meet face-to-face the muggers who had battered Simon. At this point, only God or a Jesuit could answer that question, but he had to admit to himself that, God help him, revenge was one of his primary motives.
A
