pot of Chinese tea with me, on the house. Later, it would be rowdy with drunks, but the staff would serve them with patience and courtesy, their contempt suppressed by ten thousand years of oppression.
There were no messages on my ansa phone but the postman had made a delivery. The various financial organisations that knew my address were suggesting that now was the time to reorganise my lifestyle and the house insurance was due. I binned most of it and had a shower.
I had no clean shirts. Well, no decent ones. I don't wear designer clothes and automatically reject anything with the label on the outside. If they want me to advertise their wares they should pay me, or at least bring their prices down. All jeans are made from the same material on the same machines to the same measurements. Only the labels vary, with perhaps an odd row of decorative stitching. I buy mine in the market at half price. I pulled on a pair that had that washed-once look, when the colour is at its brightest.
There is one exception to my aversion to style. Wrangler do a shirt that has a row of mother-of-pearl press- studs down the front instead of buttons, and the first time I saw one I thought that one day all shirts would be like that. Harold Wilson was at Number Ten at the time, but Scott McKenzie was at number one. I found a faded example in the recesses of the wardrobe and put it on. I was only going toSparky's;I'ddo.
Once upon a time I thought I was trendy, at art school, when I was competing with the other young blokes, like a stag at rutting time. I had an Afghan coat. I gave it to the Oxfam shop, and a couple of years ago I'm sure I saw it on telly, when Kabul fell. What goes around comes around.
I made a mug of tea and relaxed for a while to a Dire Straits CD, hoping Annabelle would call me. It was ten o'clock when the phone rang, as I was opening my front door, leather jacket half on, half off.
'Priest!' I snapped into it, with faked authority.
'Hi, Charlie. Pete Drago. How are you?'
'Hiya, Dragon,' I replied. 'This is a pleasant surprise. I'm fine, how are you?'
'I'm OK, thanks. Counting the days, of course, like you, I suppose.'
Time flies, don't remind me.'
'It doesn't seem like fifteen years since I rescued you from that big nympho when we were at the Academy.'
'Your memory's playing tricks. It was me rescued you.'
'No it wasn't. I was knocking her off for the rest of the course.'
'So were most of the others.'
'Then everyone was happy. I wonder what happened to her?'
'I married her. So where are you, these days?'
'Ha ha! Good one. I'm at Penrith, back in uniform.'
'Penrith? What took you there?'
'It was either move up here and go back into uniform or have my buttons cut off in front of the massed troops of the division. It's not too bad.'
'I get the message. It sounds as if you haven't changed much.'
'It was a long time ago. Listen, I rang Padiham Road for a chat with a couple of old pals and they said you'd been after me.'
'That's right. We have a suspected rapist called Darryl Buxton who may have originated in Burnley. There's nothing on the PNC for him, so I was hoping for some local knowledge.'
'That's what I was told. When I heard the name the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end, except that it's not quite right. The bloke I'm thinking of is called Darryl Burton.'
'Burton?' I repeated. 'No, this is definitely Buxton. What did your man do?'
'He raped a sixteen-year-old schoolgirl, eight years ago. Invited two of them to his flat one bank holiday Monday and plied them with cheap wine. One of them passed out and he raped the other. He pleaded not guilty and just before the trial the girl's parents withdrew the charges. It had been made plain to them that he intended destroying her credibility in court. I think she knew what it was all about.'
'It sounds like our man. What does he look like?'
The description could have been read from Maggie's report. 'Yuppy meets football hooligan' was his final assessment.
'It's him,' I said. 'He's moved away from Burnley and changed his name.'
'If it is the same bloke he's a nasty piece of work. He was only about twenty, but he worked as a heavy a repo man — for a firm of bailiffs, or something.'
'This one works for an estate agency called Homes 4U. He's a branch manager.'
'That's them! Homes 4U. Estate agency is putting it a bit high, I'd say. They're not above calling round to slow payers with the baseball bats.'
'Great. You've been a big help, Pete. We're bringing him in after the New Year, so it'll be good to have some background on him.'
'I haven't finished yet,' he said. 'I left a few months later, but I've a feeling that he pulled something similar after I'd gone. The man to talk to is called Herbert Mathews. He was our collator but he retired on ill health about a year ago. I'll give you his address. If it breathed in Burnley, Herbert knew about it.'
We chatted for a while, agreeing that we ought to get together, knowing we wouldn't. We'd said our farewells when a thought struck him.
'Charlie!' he shouted as I was replacing the phone.
'Yeah.'
'I just thought of something. I believe you told Padiham Road that this rape was on Christmas Eve?'
'That's right.'
'Well, the one I investigated was on a bank holiday Monday.' 'So?'
'So you know what tonight is? Maybe there's a pattern.'
'Shit!'
'Quite.'
'Happy New Year.'
'Thanks. And you.'
Chapter Four
We rang off and I sat thinking for a while. Sparky's wife Shirley, answered when I dialled their number.
'Hi, Shirl,' I said. 'Would you be terribly disappointed if I didn't come round? I'm falling asleep and don't think I'll be very good company.'
'I'll be a teeny bit disappointed,' she replied, 'but my teenage daughter will be devastated.'
'Sophie? I thought she was at a party.'
'She just rang to say it was boring, so Dave's gone to fetch her. At least, that was her excuse. She'll be upset when you're not here.'
'I doubt it,' I said.
'Charlie,' Shirley began, 'don't tell me you haven't noticed that your goddaughter has an almighty crush on 'Er, no, can't say I have.'
'Well she has.'
'Oh heck. What do we do about it?'
'Nothing. We're hoping she'll see the light. Are you sure you can't come round?'
I wanted to. These days invitations are rarer than apprenticeships at the Job Centre. I nearly made a joke about having me for a son-in-law, but decided not to. It was a delicate subject. 'Listen, Shirley,' I said. 'Don't tell Sparky Dave but something's cropped up. I'm going to the nick for an hour, see if I can help, that's all.'
'Oh, right. So what shall I say when they come in?'
'Tell Sophie that I'm curled up in front of the fire with a mug of cocoa and the latest Jeffrey Archer. That should do it.'
'Aversion therapy.'
'Precisely.'
