Authors: R. D. Wingfield
“Would you mind holding on for a moment, madam?” He covered the mouthpiece with his hand and relieved the steam pressure of his myriad grievances by yelling at young Police Constable Collier, who was painstakingly hacking out a report on the antique Underwood typewriter. “Do something useful for a change, Collier. Get upstairs and tell those drunken layabouts to keep the row down. Some of us are trying to work.”
But before Collier could move, the lobby doors parted to admit the tall, straight-backed figure of Police Superintendent Mullett, Commander of Denton Division. The Superintendent, with his glossy black hair, clipped military moustache and horn-rimmed glasses, looked more like a successful businessman than a policeman. He was wearing his casual party wear: a tailored grey suit, a silver-flecked shirt, and a blue-and-silver tie. Wells and Collier immediately stiffened to attention but were waved at ease. The thump of the disco from above made Mullett wince, and he could feel his head starting to ache, but he put a brave face on it. After all, he was one of the lads tonight, like it or not.
“They seem to be enjoying themselves up there, Sergeant Wells,” he shouted over the din. “Not too loud for you, is it?”
“No, sir,” lied Wells as he pushed the phone to Collier so the constable could take over the call. “Nice to hear people enjoying themselves . . . for a change.”
Mullett nodded his approval, his gaze wandering around the dingy lobby with its stark wooden benches and the Colorado Beetle Identification poster flapping on the dark grey walls. “I never realized just how dreary this lobby looked, Sergeant. It’s bad for public relations. Do you think you could see about cheering it up . . . get in some house plants, or flowers, or something?”
“Yes, sir. Good idea, sir,” mumbled Wells, raising his eyes to the ceiling in mute appeal. Bloody flowers indeed! He was a policeman, not a bloody landscape gardener.
“Is Inspector Frost about?” asked Mullett anxiously. He was hoping the answer would be no. He preferred that Frost, with his unpressed clothes, his unpolished shoes, his rudeness, and his coarse jokes, should be well out of the way when the Chief Constable arrived.
“Out on an inquiry, sir. Body down a public convenience off the Market Square.”
A public convenience! Mullett flinched as if he had been hit. It sounded just the type of distasteful inquiry that Frost would get himself involved in, but at least it had the advantage of keeping him out of sight when the VIP arrived.
He leaned across the desk to the sergeant, taking him into his confidence with great news: “The Chief Constable said he
might
look in, Sergeant, to say goodbye personally to George Harrison. You might ask one of your spare constables to keep an eye on the road outside . . .”
“I haven’t got anyone spare, sir,” cut in Wells hastily. “I’ve only got one constable with me to help run the entire station.” He indicated young Collier, who didn’t seem to be making much progress with the caller on the phone.
“He’ll do fine,” beamed Mullett, who had no intention of getting involved in these minor staffing problems. “The instant the Chief Constable’s car turns that corner, I want to be told. I’ll be upstairs with the lads.” He paused. “Sorry I had to put you on duty tonight, Wells, but there are so few men I could really trust to do a good job when we’re short-handed.”
Wells gave a noncommittal grunt.
Mullett pushed open the door to the canteen and steeled himself. He was not a very good mixer as far as socialising with the lower ranks was concerned and would never have attended were it not for the promised visit of the Chief Constable. He squared his shoulders, then, like a front-line soldier going over the top, he bravely charged up the stairs.
Wells glowered after him, speeding him on his way with a blast of mental abuse. “That’s right . . . go and enjoy yourself. Never mind us poor buggers sweating our guts out down here.” He became aware of Collier’s worried face looking helplessly at him, the phone still in his hand.
“What is it now, Collier? Surely you can handle a simple phone call on your own?”
“She won’t talk to me, Sarge, and she’s getting stroppy. She says she wants a high-ranking officer.”
A loud burst of sound and the crash of breaking glass from overhead. Wells hoped it was Mullett falling over the beer crates.
“She can’t have a high-ranking officer, Collier. All the high-ranking officers are upstairs getting pissed.” He snatched the phone from the constable’s hand. “Go out and keep an eye open for the Chief Constable’s Rolls . . . and get some bloody flowers.”
“Flowers?” queried Collier, but seeing the look on his sergeant’s face, prudently decided not to wait for an answer.
Wells stuffed a finger in his ear and put on his polite voice. “Yes, madam, can I help you?”
“What are you going to do about that bloody noise?” screeched the woman caller. “I’ve got three children in bed and they can’t get to sleep!”
“We’ll look into it, madam,” promised Wells.
The sliding panel that connected the lobby to the control room slid back and PC Ridley, the controller, poked his head through.
“I’ve got Dave Shelby on the radio, Sarge. He’s trying to get a body to the morgue. The ambulance men refuse to touch it. They reckon it’s too mucky for the ambulance.”
“Mr Frost is handling that one,” said Wells.
“I can’t contact Mr Frost, Sarge. He doesn’t answer his radio.”
“Typical,” snorted the sergeant. “Trust him to hide when there’s trouble.” He consulted a typed list of funeral directors. “Tell Shelby to try Mawkins in the High Street. They’re cheap, they’re not too fussy, and they keep begging us for work.”
“Right, Sarge.” The panel slid shut.
Wells was logging the last call in the phone register when he became aware of an irritating tap, tap, tap. He raised his eyes. Someone had the temerity to be rapping a pencil on the desk to attract his attention. He jerked up his head and there was the new man, that sulky swine, the bearded Detective Constable Webster, with the usual scowl on his face, tap, tap, tapping away. Furiously, Wells snatched the pencil from the man’s hand and hurled it to the floor. Pushing his face to within an inch of the constable’s, he said, “Don’t you ever do that again, Webster. If you want to attract my attention you address me by name, then wait until I am ready to respond. Understood?”
“Yes, Sergeant, I understand.” Webster almost spat the words out.
“So what do you want?”
“I want to know where the hell this Frost character has got to. I’m supposed to be working with him. Two hours ago he dumps six months’ filing on me and says he won’t be a tick. I’m still sitting in that pigsty of an office, waiting.”
A malicious smile slithered across the sergeant’s face. “You want something to do then, Constable?”
Webster gritted his teeth, trying to stop his irritation from showing. The way these yokels took a childish delight in emphasising the word ‘constable’. But he wouldn’t let them see they were getting through to him.
“Yes, Sergeant. I want something to do.”
“Right,” said Wells, smiling. “You can make the tea.”
“Make it?”
“We won’t get any tea from the canteen, Webster. It’s out of bounds to the workers. So you’ll have to make it manually, which I trust is not beneath the dignity of an ex-inspector? There’s a kettle and other stuff in the washroom. Brew up enough for six.” He lowered his head and returned to his entry in the log book.
Webster didn’t move.
Wells raised his head. “Is there a problem, Constable, something in your orders that you don’t understand?”
Webster’s face was rigid with fury. “You want me to make the tea?” He said it as if he had received an improper suggestion.
Wells chucked his pen down and bounced back Webster’s glare with a scorcher of his own. “Yes, Constable. Any objections?”
“Yes,” snapped Webster, jerking a thumb at young Collier, who was hovering by the lobby door, anxiously peering out into the road. “What about him? Why can’t he do it?”
“Because he is doing a very important job for Mr Mullett. And anyway, why should he be the tea boy instead of you? You’re both the same rank . . . you’re both constables or have you forgotten?”
“No,” snarled Webster, “I haven’t forgotten.” As if the buggers would let him forget! He spun on his heel and barged out of the lobby, slamming the door behind him.
That’s put the bastard in his place, thought Wells, feeling better now he had syphoned off some of his pent-up frustration.
Collier raced over excitedly. “The Chief Constable’s car, Sarge.”
“Well, don’t wet your knickers about it, Constable. Go upstairs and tell Mr Mullett, quick. “Wells adjusted his uniform and made his back ramrod straight. He rapped on the panel and warned Control that the Chief Constable was on the way through.
The phone on his desk gave a little cough. Wells glowered at it, daring it to ring. It defied him. So did the other phone. Damn and blast! He’d planned a quick exchange of dialogue with the Chief Constable in which the Chief would look around the empty lobby and say, “All on your own, Sergeant?” and he would reply smartly, with much diffidence, “Yes, sir, but I can cope. I can run this place single-handed if need be . . .” And the Chief Constable would smile approvingly and make a mental note that there was some very promising promotion material here. Instead, the Chief Constable, in immaculate evening suit, breezed through, nodded curtly at Wells and said, “Those phones need answering, Sergeant.”
The first phone call was from a man living in the senior citizens’ flats off Arberry Road. Some idiot in a sports car was roaring round and round the block, cutting across the lawns and waking the oldies up. Wells scribbled details and promised action. No sooner had he replaced the phone than it rang again. He picked up the second phone. Another senior citizen complaining about the same thing. “Yes, we’ve got it in hand,” he promised, reaching for the first phone—yet another old fool wanting the police to do something about this hooligan in the racing car.
As he was taking details, Wells was annoyed to see the Chief Constable pause to have a few morale-boosting words with young Collier, who ought to be answering bloody phones instead of fawning on the top brass. Behind Collier, the Divisional Commander, all atwitter, greeted the honoured guest and escorted him upstairs where the raucous noise had mysteriously abated.
And all the time this damn old man was droning away in his ear about the sports car and the inefficiency of the police who were never around when they were wanted. “I don’t suppose you managed to get its registration number, Mr Hickman?” he asked when the caller ran out of breath.
“No,” replied the old man, “but you’ll be able to trace him. His licence plate fell off when he hit the dustbins.”
“Right, Mr Hickman, thank you very much,” said Wells, scribbling out the details. “We’ll send a car over there right away.” He jotted down the time of the call . . . 10.53, and slid the note through to Control.
Ridley, the controller, checked his wall map. Arberry Road. Charlie Alpha would be the quickest. He depressed the microphone button. “Control to Charlie Alpha. Come in please.”
The old man in the call box replaced the phone and dug his fingers hopefully into the coin-return receptacle in case there was any money there. There wasn’t. He shivered as a gust of wind found the broken pane in the kiosk door. He was still in his pyjamas, with his overcoat as a dressing gown and his sockless feet uncomfortably cold in his hastily laced shoes.
That hooligan in the sports car. It was the second night running the residents had had to put up with it. Screaming tires, the horn blasting away, speeding round and round the flats as if it were on the Silverstone racing track. Tonight was even worse. The car had left the road and had ripped up lawns and flower beds as it took a shortcut. Then there was that almighty crash as it hit the dustbins and sent them flying and clanging. But that was the driver’s downfall. The impact had knocked off the licence plate. The police would get him now. Hickman hoped they’d take away his licence for life and fine him hundreds of pounds. Or, better still, send him to prison. What they ought to do is bring back the birch. That would make these lunatics think twice before they disturbed the sleep of innocent people.
He didn’t hear the car coming back. He was halfway across the road when the blinding glare of its headlamps transfixed him. The horn shrieked at him to get out of the way. But the old man was going too slowly and the car far too fast.
As if in slow motion, he saw the car leap at him, saw every detail of the radiator as it grew larger, then a terrible, smashing blow as the headlamp shattered his face. The pain was awful. Screamingly awful. But mercifully it didn’t last long before a massive cloud of red and black blotted everything out and he was sucked down, down . . .
Watching from her window, a neighbour saw the car slow down, hesitate, then rev up and roar away, leaving the crumpled heap lying in the road. She had no phone and had to rush out and hammer at the next-door flat, screaming for someone to call an ambulance. The commotion had woken many of the residents. It didn’t wake Hickman’s wife. Slightly deaf; she slept soundly through it all, thinking her husband was still at her side.
The woman who had seen it happen covered the old man’s bleeding body with blankets as they waited for the ambulance. It was on the scene in exactly four minutes from the time the 999 phone call had been received. The same ambulance and the same two ambulance men who had refused to handle the vomit-sodden body from the toilets. Carefully, they lifted Hickman onto a stretcher and, in a little less than thirty seconds, were on their way to the hospital, speeding past the arriving Charlie Alpha as it turned the corner.
The area car slid to a halt in front of the call box, its tires just managing to avoid the puddle of blood and the shards of broken headlamp glass. PC Jordan took statements from witnesses while his observer, PC Simms, was sent to find the fallen licence plate. Then someone remembered Hickman’s wife. A woman neighbour went with Simms to wake her and break the news.