The pub was full, getting near to closing time, and the swill underway before 'Time' was called.
David Park was away from the bar, outside the group. He stared back at them.
'Bloody hell, Keeper, are you in this round or are you not?' There were six of them up at the bar, and some had shed their jackets, and all had loosened their ties, and their faces were flushed. A hell of a good evening for all concerned, except for David Park. He hadn't made his excuses and gone home to Ann, but he hadn't played much of a part in the piss-up that had been inevitable after Mr Justice Kennedy's remarks following the sentencing.
'Keeper, it is your round.'
True, it was David Park's round. He drained his bitter lemon. He made his way to the bar. In a quiet voice, and the barmaid had to heave most of her bosom onto the beer mats to hear him, he ordered six pints of Yorkshire bitter, and a bitter lemon with ice. He passed the beers from the bar to the eager waiting hands.
'Bloody good, Keeper… Cheers, old mate…'Bout bloody time too… Keeper, my old love, you are something of a wet towel tonight… '
He grinned, fast, as if that were a weakness. He did not like to acknowledge weakness.
'I'm driving,' he said calmly. He slid away from the heart of the group, back to the fringe. His radio call sign was Keeper, had been ever since he had been accepted into the Investigation Division. He was Park, and so some bright creature had labelled him Keeper. Mucking in, getting pissed-up, falling around, they weren't Park's talents. He had other talents, and Mr Justice Kennedy had remarked on them and commended the April team's dedicated work, and to everyone else in April that was reason enough to be on their seventh pint with a cab home at the end of it. Mr Justice Kennedy had handed down, late that afternoon, a Fourteen, two Twelves, and a Nine. Mr Justice Kennedy had called for Bill Parrish, Senior Investigating Officer and in charge of April team, to step up into the witness box so that the thanks of 'a society under threat from these hellish traffickers who deal in wickedness' could be expressed. Bill Parrish in a clean white shirt then had looked decently embarrassed at the fulsome praise set out by the old cove. Parrish earned, basic, ?16,000 a year. David Park earned, basic,?12,500 a year. The bastards who had gone down, for Fourteen and Twelve and Nine, were looking at a couple of million hidden away in the Caymans, and not touchable. It would take Park 40 years to earn what the bastards had waiting for them after their time, less remission, and by then he would be retired with his index-linked pension to cuddle. He liked the chase, cared little about the kill, couldn't care less once the 'cuffs went on.
Parrish would get a great welcome from his wife when he made it home after closing, and she'd pour him another jug full and sit him down on the settee and roll the video so that he could belch his way through the recordings of the two main news bulletins of the evening and hear the message to the nation that Customs and Excise was super bloody marvellous, and keeping the nation safe, etc, etc. Park hoped Ann would be asleep.
April team was Iranian heroin. Park had been four years with April and had an encyclopaedic knowledge of Iranian heroin. He had been the front man in this investigation, deep inside the guts of the organisation that was doing the running of the scag, he had even driven for them. Ann knew sweet nothing about what he had been at. Best if she were asleep when he reached home.
He watched the group. He thought they looked stupid and very drunk. He couldn't remember when he had last been the worse for wear in public. One of the reasons he had been selected, that he could be relied upon invariably to stay the right side of the bottle. To be less than 1000 per cent, clear-headed on a covert operation would be real bad news, like a shotgun barrel in the back of the neck. He didn't tell Ann what he did. He told her the generalities, never the details. He couldn't have told her that he was insinuated into a gang, that if his cover were blown he'd be face down in the Thames with the back of his skull a bloody remnant. He thought one of the guys was going to fall over.
Bill Parrish had detached himself from the group at the bar session, made his way stiffly to Park. An arm looped around his shoulders. He took the weight.
'Mind if I say it…? When you want, you can be awe-somely priggish, David.'
'You can say it.'
'April's a team, a shit hot team. A shit hot team stands or falls on being together. Being together doesn't match with one bugger on the edge and looking down his nose.'
Park disentangled the arm, propped it onto the mantelpiece of the bar's fireplace. 'Meaning what?'
'Meaning that this has been a great scene, worth celebrating…
'
Park dragged the breath down into his lungs. Parrish had asked for it. He'd get it.
'Did you see them in there? Did you see them when they were being sent down? They were laughing at us, Bill. One Fourteen, two Twelves and a Nine, and they were looking across at us like it was some sort of crack. Did you see their women in the gallery? Deep tans from the Costa. And that wasn't paste on their fingers, ears, throats… Hear me, Bill.
What we are at is a confidence trick. We aren't even scratching at these pigs, and here we are pretending we're winning. It's a confidence trick the Judge plays too, and that way the British masses go to their beds tonight thinking everything is hunky-dory. We're kidding ourselves, Bill. We're not win- ning, we're not even doing well. We're drowning in the bloody stuff…'
'That's daft talk, David.'
'How's this for daft talk? Heroin's an explosion, cocaine's gone through the roof, 'phets are up, with cannabis we're talking tonnage not kilos. We're deluding ourselves if we pretend we're on top of it. We're down on the floor, Bill. Yes or no, Bill?'
'I've drink taken, I'm not answering.'
'Sorry, out of order. You know what I think…?'
He saw Parrish roll his eyes. Wouldn't be the first time that Keeper had spouted his view of salvation.
'Give it me.'
'We're too defensive, Bill. We should be a more aggressive force. We should be abroad more, we should be ferreting down the source. We shouldn't just be a line of last resort with our backs against the wall. We should be out there and after them.'
Parrish gazed into the young face in front of him, into the coolness of the eyes that were not misted with drink, at the determined set of the youngster's chin. He swayed. 'And where's out there? 'Out there' is the arse end of Afghanistan, it's the happy little villages of Iran. My darling, you go there on your own. You don't go there with your old Uncle Bill.'
'Then we might just as well give up – legalise the stuff.'
'For a joker who's going to get a Commendation, who's just had the Judge's praises sung up his bum, you are mightily hard to please, Keeper… You should go home. In the morning, a good shit and a good shower and a good shave and you'll feel no end better.'
Parrish had given up on him, headed back for the group.
He stood a few more minutes on his own. The rest had now forgotten him. He could not help himself. He could not turn it off, like they could. He was right, he knew he was right, but none of them came over to join him, to hear how right he was. He called across to say that he was on his way. None of them turned, none of them heard him.
He drove home. He observed the speed limit. He was stone cold sober. It meant nothing to him that the Judge had singled him out for praise. It only mattered that there was a war, and it was not being won.
Home was a two-bedroom flat in the south-west suburbs of the city. He could afford to live in the flat because of his overtime and Ann's work in a local architect's office. He garaged his Escort at the back of the block. He felt half dead with tiredness. He was a long time selecting the right key.
What made him tired, what made him want to throw up, had been their looks from the dock as they had heard sentence.
The bastards had laughed at April's best effort.
Inside there was a note on the narrow hall table.
' D. I've gone to Mum's for the night. Might see you tomorrow if you've the time, A. '
The detective, bright and early, thanked the supervisor at the exchange. A small country town, of course there were easy and unofficially good relations between the exchange and the police. The number that had been disconnected last evening had been reported out of order three times during the night.
One caller had left his name and telephone number. And not a name that surprised him. Young Darren was quite well known to the local detective. He suggested to the supervisor that it would be quite in order for the
