Trying to keep his grip, McAllister held the phone – which he had abruptly acquired from WPC Baxter at the instant he resumed command – like a club.
‘Calder, you may think you’re a bloody Miami Vice, but I’ve news for you. You’re a Special, and that puts you lower than the lowest PC still in his nappies. And right now you’re a damned nuisance. In future, leave highway duty to those who know what they’re doing.’
The line went dead, and Freddy blinked hard. That’s the thanks you get for risking your life, he thought to himself, still unable to calm his trembling fingers … and as a volunteer yet! Bunch of bloody desk jockeys.
‘Damned Hobby Bobby!’ McAllister muttered at no one in particular, although scared rabbit Baxter was at least ostensibly paying attention to his every word.
‘Pretend police, who don’t take their function at all seriously … who sell brassieres! This is no place for a clown.’
As far as McAllister was concerned it was enough to bring the entire Specials programme into question.
‘Who’s his senior Special?’
‘His SDO is Barker …’ replied Baxter.
An easy name for her to remember, McAllister mused.
‘… but he’s not been putting in much of an appearance lately, and things are being handled by the section officer, Bob Loach.’
I must have a quiet chat with Loach then, thought McAllister with a smile.
Cougar Coaches was busy in the late afternoon, hosting the methodical movement of vehicles being driven in and out of the garage. Prominently parked in the yard area reserved for the staff were the infamous Loach-mobiles, Bob’s white Jag next to Noreen’s Renault 25: hardly a matched pair.
Inside the garage were several buses of varying size and capacity, a few still waiting for repair or some adjustment: the mechanics were clocking off for the day. Unable to stop fussing over a particularly stubborn exhaust-system problem grounding one of the coaches for the last couple of days, works foreman John Barraclough was finishing the job himself. He had advised the frustrated young mechanic he could push off home after informing at least one of the Loaches as to the current status of and prognosis for the obstinate exhaust system.
In one corner of the garage, in the office constructed of white-painted breeze blocks, Noreen Loach was feeling trapped while trying to get somewhere: trying to leave a bit early so she could get to her appointment at the beauty parlour. There was always too much ‘getting’ to do.
She had tidied her desk until it was a model of efficient organization, and made her final tour of the kitchen, wash-up and lavatory in the annexe. Now all that remained to obstruct her was her husband, as usual.
‘I’m off, then. I’ll tidy up the Edinburgh entries tomorrow. It looks as though we did well on that one.’ – While she practised her nonchalant tone of voice at every opportunity, in her own mind she realized full well that it convinced nobody, again with the possible exception of her husband, the one hope she clung to in the present circumstances.
‘Oh aye.’
Another response typical of his ever-so-revealing remarks, she reminded herself.
‘Yes. Anyway, I’m late for my appointment.’ Before he could interrupt, she kept right on going, moving to the door one step at a time. ‘Can I trust you to call them up and say I’m on my way?’
‘Call who?’
Whatever her wishful thinking about making a quick exit, two words from him could dash such notions in an instant.
‘Judy’s Beauty Salon. And no cracks, Loach. I don’t have time for cracks.’
‘I was only going to ask, Noreen, how long you’d be there.’
Immediately she was defensive. ‘What for? I don’t have time to bother about your tea, if that’s what you’re asking.’
Obviously that was not what he was asking. What was she keeping to herself this time, he wondered.
‘I can grab a sandwich. It won’t be the first time.’
Apparently his gesture of self-sufficiency had tipped her over the edge.
‘I’m off,’ she shrugged, swinging her leather bag over her shoulder in a huff and throwing him a warning glance. ‘I can’t stand it when you use that little-boy-lost voice.’
After waiting another few moments to assure himself she was definitely gone, he lifted himself from the chair, straightened his shoulders and assumed an altogether different frame of mind on his way to the back room.
When he emerged with his freshly cleaned and pressed uniform, he was a new man. Carefully he stripped away the long plastic dry-cleaner bag, and there it was: the armour of a peaceful people, a dignified suit of mere cloth, yet signifying to every citizen of the realm that this man, Robert Loach, was a Special, section-officer grade.
Inhaling a deep breath to expand his chest, he held the smart uniform up against himself as a mannequin, looked in the tiny wall mirror Noreen used to patch up her powder and picked imaginary specks of foreign matter and even a few filaments of nearly invisible dust already beginning to float on to the stiff collar.
That was when the door behind him opened, the moment Noreen had chosen for her curtain call.
‘Forgot my keys.’
With as much diplomacy, aplomb and deception as he could muster at this moment, he backed away from the mirror as inconspicuously as possible while swiftly shifting his scrutiny to the illusory minutiae on the collar of his uniform.
Noreen went straight to her desk to fetch the keys, without taking much notice of her husband caught preening himself in her mirror.
‘Did you make the call?’
‘I will. Give me a chance.’
‘I did that once and ended up marrying you.’
‘Very funny,’ he said.
On her way out again, she almost bumped into John Barraclough on his way in, holding up his oily black hands in front of her face, thus barring her path with a crude display of the vulgar side of his occupation. As she always remembered at such inopportune incidents, it was also her husband’s calling.
‘I’m sorry, Mrs Loach. Didn’t like knocking on the door. Not with these.’
To impress his blunt point upon her even further, Barraclough extended his hands closer to her eyes so that she might focus on the grease slicking down the hair on his knuckles.
‘That’s all right. See you tomorrow, Mr Barraclough.’
He nodded politely, still with his dripping hands held up to his face. She managed what she hoped would
