The Cold Calling

I

Three years later, the autumn night he died, Bobby Maiden was drinking single malt, full of this smoky peat essence. Put you in mind of somewhere damp and lonely. Moorland meeting the sea, no visible horizon.

The whiskies were on the house, all five of them. Could be the same went for the woman. Who was starting to look more than OK, the arrangement of her too-black hair coming apart in a tumble, sexy as a bathrobe falling open. Face white, lipstick a luminous mauve, all very Gothic. When you hadn’t been in this situation for quite a while, you tended to forget what an over-scented lady in a pasted-on black frock could do when she was concentrating.

‘So, Bobby …’ Shaking out a fresh cigarette. ‘Your old man was one too, then.’

Five whiskies. About right for explaining how the old bastard shafted him.

‘A real one,’ Maiden said. ‘Not many left. As he’d keep telling you. A Plod. Village copper, deepest Cheshire. I mean, there’s nowhere very deep in Cheshire any more, but there was then. Police Sergeant Norman Maiden. Never Norman. Certainly never Norm. Not with the uniform on. Question of respect, madam.’

Well after midnight now. Just Maiden and this woman called … Susan? … in Tony Parker’s nasty new club in the grim, concrete west end of Elham. How this had happened, he’d arranged to meet Percy Gilbert, Snout of the Year, 1979. Be worth your time, Mr Maiden, no question. No-one else in Elham CID had any time, never mind money, for Percy these days. But it was Bobby Maiden’s weekend off, so nothing lost. Nothing at all. Sadly.

But the bugger hadn’t shown. Maiden had ordered a Scotch, and the barman wouldn’t take any money — special introductory offer for new members, the drink’ll be brought to your table, sir. On these soiled streets, a police warrant card bought more drinks than American Express, but he didn’t think the barman knew him. Next thing, the woman’s arriving with a tray, claiming to be Parker’s niece, from London.

By this time, the gears are whirring, cogs clicking into place. A nicely oiled mechanism starting up. The sound of Tony Parker making his move.

Mr Un-nickable. Mr Immunity.

Maiden deciding to roll with it, see where it led.

‘… course, all the kids were terrified of this flesh-eating dinosaur in the tall hat. He had the human race divided into three: the police, the evil toerags and the Public who were grateful for your protection and showed a bit of respect. So there was only one role for a real man and, particularly, for Son of Plod. Thing was, Su …’

Suzanne. That was the name. But, remembering it, he’d forgotten what he was going to say.

Suzanne put down her vodka and orange, kind of thoughtful. What had she asked him, to start him off about Norman Plod? What’s a sensitive guy like you doing in the police? Maybe. Couldn’t remember.

One thing about Suzanne: she was professionally unknown to Maiden. That is, not one of Tony Parker’s regular slags. Plus, she had a certain bizarre style.

‘There was some poet, Bobby … wrote this really deep-down truthful line. Tennyson, Keats, one of those. I don’t go much on poetry, but … “Your mum and dad, they always fuck you up …” Something like that. Wordsworth, would it be?’

Maiden ogled the ceiling. ‘That would be before or after he wrote about the fucking daffs?’

‘Nah, what I’m saying, a man like him …’ Suzanne leaned her head back, blew out smoke. ‘I can see, a man like your dad, why he wouldn’t want you to be a painter or nothing like that.’

And then you get out of your nancified art college, what happens then, eh? Norman Plod, gardening in police boots and ragged old police shirts. What you gonna do for readies then, with no government grant to prop yer up? Eh? Eh?

Maiden realized he was doing his Norman Plod out loud.

Artists? Parasites, lad. Nobody wants ‘em till they’ve snuffed it. Live off the State and sponging off their mates. Go bloody mad, cut their ears off.

‘Cut their ears off.’ Maiden shook his head. ‘I’d forgotten about that.’

‘Right. Yeah.’ Suzanne’s white face bobbing like a Japanese doll’s. ‘I think I heard of a guy that happened to.’

‘Fancy.’ Was this woman real?

Look, Norman said, back from the Conservative Club, flattening a tube of flake white with his size nines. Do yourself a favour. Get rid of this nancy shit. Else they’ll think you’re a poof. Think you’re a poof, lad!

‘What a bastard. Did you?’

‘What?’

‘Get rid of it.’

‘No. Just went undercover.’

And still was. There were nights now when he was painting through till dawn: pale, minimal, imaginary landscapes, not much more than air and light. Paintings of the white noise in his head. Not, in fact, a long way from the cutting-off-the-ear stage, when you thought about it.

‘What do you paint?’

‘Places. Feelings. Usual crap. Never sold one. Never tried. Copper’s little hobby, who needs it?’ Me, I need it, he thought. There’s nothing else. Isn’t that terminally pathetic?

Suzanne smoked in silence for a few seconds, then she said, ‘So you wanted to paint and he was determined you were going to trail in his big footsteps. Where was your mother all this time?’

Bobby Maiden stared into his glass.

‘In heaven.’

You know what happens to them, coppers like Maiden, the sensitive ones … Two possible career projections. Either they go to the top faster than they deserve…

This was Martin Riggs, Divisional Super now, talking to veteran DI Barry Hutchins at the CID Christmas binge. Barry just loved to tell this story, especially loved telling Maiden, who — unforgivably — avoided the Christmas binge. Barry had taken a retirement deal, worked for Group Four Security now, so he could say what he liked.

… or else they crack up, Riggs tells Barry. Top themselves. Look at the situation. He’s thirty-five, still a DI. Goes off to the Met, can’t stand the heat, and he’s back after a year. In this job, Barry, if you want to get on, you don’t come back.

This was very true. You certainly don’t come back when the new boss is someone you happened to run into in London, in circumstances that convinced you he was bent.

‘You still got them, Bobby?’

‘Huh?’

‘Your paintings.’ Her eyes were opaque.

‘Oh.’

‘Only I wouldn’t mind seeing them,’ Suzanne said.

He choked off a laugh into the whisky.

‘Let me get this right. You’re saying you would like to come up and see my etchings?’

‘Whatever.’ Suzanne ground her cigarette into the ashtray and reached across the table for her bag.

‘You mean now?’

Got to think, got to think.

‘All right then,’ he said. ‘I’ll just pop to the bog.’

Alone in the gents’, Maiden slapped cold water on his face.

OK. Think.

Owen Anthony Parker, entrepreneur. Fairly new in town. Cheery, beaming Londoner making a fresh start in the provincial leisure industry. Looks dodgy as hell, but no record. In no time at all, Parker has two clubs, one lowlife, one upmarketish, and five pubs. Public figure, hosts charity evenings. Thanks to Mr Parker, Elham General Hospital has its long-battled-for new body-scanner.