‘Then go for it,’ he said, lifting a whisky bottle from a drawer.
‘No, the boredom would get me down.’
Gilbert stood the bottle on the cabinet and crouched, squinting at the level, and carefully drew a line on the label.
‘You’re wasting your time,’ I told him. ‘We just widdle in the bottle to bring it back up to the mark.’
‘That I can believe,’ he said, nodding enthusiastically.
We discussed priorities and a couple of low-level meetings he wanted me to attend. I didn’t mention the raid on Michael Angelo’s planned for Wednesday. I would have liked to have grilled him about Dominic Watts, the father, but resisted, in case he asked why I wanted to know.
Nigel was in with several of the other troops when I arrived back in the CID office. We spent an hour discussing ram raids and burglaries, and generally slagging-off some of the problem families that give us most heartache. Sometimes, a programme of selective assassination sounds highly attractive, until you realise where it would lead. Plenty of my colleagues would be prepared to risk it, I’m ashamed to admit. Then we all went home.
Tomorrow was the big day. Once a year, towards the end of his term of office, we have a Lord Mayor’s parade, to raise money for his nominated charity. This time it was for the children’s ward of Heckley General Hospital. A cavalcade of vehicles would start at the Town Hall at noon and slowly wend its way round the town to the sports field, where there would be various other events taking place. The classic car section of the Police Sports and Social Club would take part in the parade, and I was invited. It was their only event of the year. When I got home, I reversed the E-type out of the garage and gave it a wash and leathering. Then I sat on the wall and just gazed at it until the street lamps came on.
Last year, Annabelle came with me, and we had a good day. This time I’d be on my own, and I wasn’t looking forward to it. I picked up the phone and dialled Sparky’s number. His wife answered.
‘Hiya, Shirl. It’s Charlie,’ I said.
‘He’s out,’ she responded. ‘No, he’s drunk. That’s it: he’s had three pints of home-made lager and is in no fit state to drive, or anything else.’
‘Relax, it’s you I want to talk to.’
‘Oh. In that case, hello, Charlie, how are you?’
‘It’s nice of you to ask, eventually. Look, it’s the Lord Mayor’s parade tomorrow, and I’ve promised to take the Jaguar along. If the kids aren’t doing anything I was wondering if they’d like to come, too?’
‘Oh, that’s nice of you. But won’t Annabelle be going?’
‘Er, no, she’s got something else on.’
‘Right. Hang on, I’ll see if they can be torn away from the television.’
They weren’t doing anything, and they would love to come to the parade with their Uncle Charlie.
Hunger drove me out of bed early Saturday morning. I settled for toast and marmalade for breakfast but decided to treat myself that evening. I trimmed the fat from a couple of pork chops and seared them in the frying pan. I arranged them side-by-side in the slow cooker and covered them with a selection of vegetables and a can of condensed soup. They’d be done to perfection by tea time.
Nigel was in the office when I swung the long nose of the Jag into the super’s place in the car park. We discussed the Dean brothers’ case that was coming to court, and, after great deliberation and much soul-searching, I wrote ‘No further action’ on several documents Gilbert had left for me. The feeling of power made me feel light- headed. At eleven thirty I tore myself away and drove round to Sparky’s.
Daniel hadn’t changed much since I last saw him, just grown a little bigger and cheekier. He was the type of exasperating fourteen-year-old that you curse one moment and then say a little prayer of thanks for. ‘Hi, Uncle Charlie,’ he greeted me as they came down the garden path.
But Sophie had changed. No wonder Sparky’s grumpier than ever, I thought. In less than a year she’d grown up. She was my god-daughter, and just past her seventeenth birthday. I reluctantly accepted that this was possibly the last time she’d want to be seen out with an old fogey like me. I held the door open and Daniel scrambled into the back. ‘Thank you,’ Sophie said, swinging her legs into the low car as if she’d been doing it for years. I waved to Shirley and slipped into the driving seat.
The parade was fun. Sophie practised her regal wave and Daniel pretended to be manager of Manchester United, back from another triumphant visit to Wembley. At first we were behind a steamroller, but we out-gunned him on the High Street without too much trouble. It was driven by the local scrap dealer, whose skin is the colour of an oily rag and who drives the biggest Mercedes in West Yorkshire.
The rest of the afternoon was a drag. While the kids enjoyed the fun fair and the police dog demonstration, I stayed with the car, and told several hundred people that it did a hundred and fifty miles per hour and nineteen to the gallon. They brought ice-creams back with them and Sophie presented me with a fridge magnet she’d won. It was a little plastic Sherlock Holmes, complete with magnifying glass. Then I left them in charge while I took a stroll round.
They were deep in conversation with an older boy and girl when I arrived back. ‘We’ve had our pictures taken for the paper,’ Daniel boasted when he saw me.
‘Ask him, he won’t bite,’ Sophie said to the young couple, adding, ‘he’s quite nice, really.’
‘Ask him what?’ I said, giving them a smile.
She was quite bonny, and he looked presentable, with the obligatory earring. ‘It’s a fabulous car,’ the boy said, his expression supporting his words.
‘Thank you. Do you want to buy it?’
‘Uh, chance’d be a fine thing,’ he replied.
‘We were wondering if you did weddings,’ the girl said.
‘Weddings? No. My name is Priest, but I can’t marry people.’
‘No! We meant with the car. Like, a taxi service?’
‘Oh, I see. Well no, not really.’
They looked disappointed. ‘Never mind then,’ the girl replied. ‘I hope you didn’t mind us asking. We wanted a white Rolls-Royce, but we’ve been let down. We just thought you might…you know.’
I tried, but I couldn’t think of a decent reason for not doing it. ‘When do you get married?’ I asked.
‘Next Saturday.’
‘Leaving it a bit late aren’t you? Er, for the taxi, I mean.’
They both blushed, which made three of us.
‘My Uncle George has a Granada,’ she said. ‘We’ll use that if we can’t find anything else.’
‘Which church?’
‘St Bidulph’s.’
‘Oh.’
‘Do you know it?’
‘Yes, I do.’ Annabelle lives in the old vicarage. ‘So where’s the reception?’
She was smiling now. ‘At the Masonic Hall,’ she said.
‘In the town centre?’
‘Mmm.’
‘Right. Give me a number where I can contact you, and I’ll give you a ring through the week. But I’m not making any promises.’
I took the kids for a drive on the M62 to the Birch services, where we had hamburgers and chips. Daniel said, ‘Doctor, Doctor, I keep thinking I’m a pair of curtains.’
‘No wonder you look drawn,’ I replied.
‘No! You should say, “Pull yourself together.”’
Sophie said, ‘I think Uncle Charlie’s answer was best,’ to which Daniel retorted, ‘Well you would, wouldn’t you,’ and poor Sophie blushed like only a seventeen-year-old can. Anybody watching would have thought we were a family.
I was in trouble for feeding them when we arrived back. Shirley, their mother, teaches cookery and had prepared beef stroganoff for us, with jam roly-poly to follow. I wasn’t hungry, but still managed large helpings of each. The pork chops made a pleasant change for Sunday breakfast, before I went to the office for a couple of
