Policeman's Progress (2 page)

A bull-like voice bellowed out before the policemen could enter.

‘What in hell are you doing back … didn't I tell you to duff him up a bit, Joe!'

There was the thump of clenched fist on a desk and Geordie cringed back against the constable. Suddenly, the speaker caught sight of the police uniforms and bit his words off in mid-air.

‘What the hell's this, then?' Like Joe and Geordie, he had a broad Tyneside accent.

The officers pushed through the door and saw Jackie Stott standing behind his desk, glowering at them. The room seemed full of big men. Geordie, who would not have been out of place in a group of average-sized people, was dwarfed. Joe and the two policemen were all six-foot-plus, with shoulders to match. Jackie Stott was in the same class. He was younger, in his early forties, and coarsely handsome, though a repeatedly broken nose marred his looks. Straw-coloured hair was waved in tight furrows close to his bullet head. His pale blue eyes were sharp and knowing – he'd had the sense to get out of the professional ring long before he had become a punchy wreck like Joe Blunt, his old sparring partner.

Stott stared suspiciously at Horace and Leadbitter, whom he knew well by sight.

‘What's it this time – you coppers trying to nick me for something again?'

‘We're not trying anything,' answered Leadbitter, untruthfully. ‘We're just seeing that everyone sticks to the rules, Jackie.'

‘Like hell you are – and I'm
Mr Stott
to you, copper.'

Ernie smiled gently. ‘You were Jackie to us fifteen years ago, when we used to see you hammer the champions up at St James' Hall – so Jackie will do for me now.'

Stott was appeased at once. The wily sergeant knew when to use a bit of ‘soft soap'.

‘So what's all the fuss?' he asked in a more moderate voice. ‘Are we sinking or has our liquor licence expired?'

Leadbitter waved at Joe and Geordie. ‘Assault – creating a disturbance – breaking the peace … Joe hammering the daylights outta Geordie here. Know anything about it?'

Stott glared at Joe Blunt and the great oaf looked as if he was going to burst into tears.

Jackie looked back at the policemen. ‘Don't ask me … but you know Joe here, he's a bit soft in the head. No accounting what he'll get up to.' He snapped back at his henchman, ‘What you bin doing, you great clart?'

Joe's limping brain could hardly keep up with the turn of events.

‘Well, you told me to …'

‘Shurrup!' cut in Jackie, quickly. ‘What's it all about, Geordie?' His eyes bored into the young man's with such venomous warning, that Geordie got the message without difficulty.

He gulped. ‘Jus' me an' Joe having a bit o' fun, you know.'

Leadbitter snorted. ‘The hell you were! Think I'm daft? Joe here had you down on the deck, putting the boot in.'

Both Joe and Geordie made loud, if unconvincing, denials until Jackie cut them off short.

‘Look, you damn fools, if you want horseplay, you go down to the gym in the morning, not foul up my boat, kicking up a row.' He turned to the sergeant. ‘Sorry, sarge, but like I said, Joe's a few ounces short when it comes to brains.'

Leadbitter sighed. ‘Do me a favour, Jackie … when I came in just now, I heard you mention a “duffing up” – so did the constable here. Brawling in public is an offence and I want to know why I shouldn't book Joe here for disorderly behaviour, if not something worse.'

‘Geordie's making no charge – are you, Geordie?' snapped Stott, throwing a flaming look at the unfortunate George Armstrong. ‘And it was on the boat, which is private property. Not in the street or quayside, so why not drop it, eh?'

Ernie looked piercingly at Armstrong. ‘
Are
you making any complaint, Geordie? I know damn well that Joe was giving you the bum's rush. What's it all about?'

The young man looked fearfully at his employer, not at the police. ‘I'm making no charge, like Mr Stott says … it was all a bit o' fun.'

Leadbitter grunted. He could make a case of it, he supposed, but was it worth it? It was private property, but in full public view. The fact that Geordie made no complaint was irrelevant in the case of a public nuisance. But he was sorry for the pathetic punch-drunk old boxer, and it was he who would be the only one to suffer if there were a prosecution. He had several previous convictions for violence – as had his boss, Jackie – and he would be sure to get a prison sentence with his record. Jackie was the one behind it and he would get off unscathed. Ernie decided it was better to add the information to their store against Stott, rather than victimise his strong-arm man.

‘I'll have to report it in and see what action needs to be taken,' he said rather pompously. ‘Let's have no more messing about tonight – or any other night. You've got a licence to think of, Jackie, as we both well know. There's lots of folks who'd be glad to see this hulk cleared off the river – and I'm one of 'em.'

He turned on his heel and walked out, Horace close behind. They walked through another zone of silence in the gaming room and up onto the deck.

Geordie Armstrong scuttled along close behind and vanished over the gangway before any more misfortune could overtake him.

Before Joe had lumbered out of the deck house, the officers were climbing down into their launch.

‘Watch it, Joe – keep your nose clean,' called up Leadbitter as Horace cast off. ‘With the form you've got, you can't afford to be up before the beaks too often.'

The diesel roared again as Horace pulled away from the
Mississippi
. The sergeant took the radio handset from a cubby hole and called up Control in distant South Shields.

‘Tyne Pol Control,
D for Dog
here,
D for Dog
. Resuming patrol after being off the air at the Ouseburn … any messages?'

A crackled negative reassured Ernie. He sat hunched in his seat alongside the stolid Horace and wondered what the hell the performance on Jackie's boat had
really
been about.

Chapter Two

Back on the
Mississippi
, Jackie Stott was tearing into his henchman, who ineffectually tried to defend himself.

‘'Ow the 'ell was I to know there was a bloody copper looking over me shoulder?'

‘I didn't tell you to half-kill him in full view of all Newcastle, did I?' snarled Jackie. ‘I should 'a left you to go to a mental home, where you belong, Joe, instead of trying to look after you! My good nature will be the death of me one day.'

Joe Blunt looked like a faithful spaniel who had just collected a kick in the ribs from its master. ‘I'm sorry, honest … but Geordie tried to cut up rough after you told me to chuck him ashore.'

‘You never miss a chance to thump Geordie, do you, Joe!'

Stott stubbed his cigarette out angrily and snatched a camel-hair coat from the back of the door.

As Joe hurried to help him into it, he said, ‘I'm going through to the Bigg Market – I've got to talk to Thor Hansen about this business of Geordie.'

The club owner marched to the door and made a last plea before he opened it.

‘Now for God's sake, try to keep out of trouble for the rest of the flaming night – you know the police are dying to get the drop on me for something.'

He hurried through the gaming room, giving nods to many of the regular patrons as he went. Joe lumbered after him, muttering promises of good behaviour, until he vanished over the gangway.

A few minutes later, Stott reached the city centre in his white Mercedes, stopping at a now sleeping parking meter in the cobbled area of the Bigg Market.

The Rising Sun Club occupied two floors above a furniture shop. The premises were narrow but deep, squeezed in between a public house and a tiny lane which led to a court containing another pub and the back entrance of a large multiple store.

Jackie strode up to the narrow entrance of the club with a proprietary swagger and ran up the steep stairs easily – though starting to run to fat, he was still a very powerful man. Over-eating and over-drinking had not yet made too many inroads into his strength and virility.

At the top was another door into a small foyer, where two small rooms were partitioned off. The first cubicle did duty both as cloakroom and sentry box.

‘Evening, sir.'

A tall, thin man with a harelip jumped up from a stool behind the cloakroom counter. This was Herbert Lumley, an old soldier who acted as doorman, cloakroom attendant and chucker-out.

Jackie grunted at him. ‘Where's Hansen, Herb?'

‘I believe the manager is upstairs, sir – I saw him with Miss Laura a few minutes past.'

The straight-backed old fellow was a stickler for propriety. Once a sergeant in the Northumberland Fusiliers, he seemed out of place in a nightclub, until one saw him ejecting a bunch of troublemakers with a calm efficiency that showed the strength of both his character and his muscles.

Jackie pushed through the inner doors to meet a blast of warm air and the throb of a four-piece group on the low stage.

The big room on the first floor was given over to drinking, cabaret and dancing, in that order of importance. It was after Laura Levine's first singing spot of the evening, but too early for the strip show.

Turning left, Jackie went up a second flight of stairs to the top floor. Here, another glass door led into the casino, but alongside it was a plain door fitted with a Chubb lock. This was his own flat, which shared the second floor with the gaming part of his establishment. There was even a secret peephole from his lounge into the casino, so that he could keep a personal eye on things.

As Stott let himself in, he heard a woman's voice from the lounge.

He pushed open the lounge door and nodded at the two occupants. They were sitting as far apart as the room would allow, but only since his key had been heard in the lock.

‘Hi, Laura … hello, Thor. Let's have a drink.'

He slumped down on to the settee and his big hand dropped possessively onto the woman's thigh. He squeezed and she smiled mechanically at him.

‘How's the
Mississippi
… much of a crowd tonight?' Thor Hansen's slight Danish accent contrasted with Jackie's local one.

‘Crowd's fair enough – but that blasted Geordie Armstrong is screwing it up for me!'

He half-turned and shot a queer look at Laura Levine, as if expecting some reaction from her. She looked back blankly at him from under her false black lashes and he buried his nose in the glass that Hansen handed him.

Thor brought another drink for the woman, then sat opposite with his own. ‘I told you he needed watching … better have him back up here, where we can keep an eye on him.'

Jackie snorted. ‘You may be needing a bloody magnifying glass to keep an eye on him, one of these days.'

‘What d'you mean?' snapped Laura.

‘I mean that I'll be tearing Geordie into little bits if I definitely catch him out.' Again he gave her a suspicious look. Thor's calculating eyes watched them both.

‘What's Geordie been up to, then?' She spoke nonchalantly, crossing her legs to escape Jackie's caress.

He scowled at her. ‘Don't you know?'

She ignored him and the Dane covered up the awkward moment with a question. ‘Joe has been making trouble, I guess?'

Stott threw down his whisky in one gulp and held out his glass for another. ‘Aye, Joe Blunt hates his guts all right. Tried to kick him into the Tyne tonight – in full view of the coppers, silly oaf!'

Thor Hansen's blond eyebrows rose. He was a typical handsome Scandinavian; tall, slim, with a longish face and crisp fair hair.

‘Geordie's been fiddling the wheel somehow,' went on Stott, ‘I can't figure out how he's doing it and I can't catch him at it, blast him!'

‘Are his takings down every night?'

‘Just a fraction – he's not fool enough to try to twist the house much, but he's soaking the mugs somehow, I'll swear. I know the signs – a coupla new suits, bought himself a nearly new Cortina. Where the hell's he gettin' it, if he ain't twisting the table?'

Laura Levine stretched herself back against the corner of the settee and curled her feet under her.

‘Perhaps he's knocked over a bank or a wages van,' she said languidly.

‘Very bloody funny!' snapped Jackie. ‘He couldn't knock over a blind beggar and steal his tin! Playing the wheel is all he's got talent for – that and chasing birds,' he added ominously. He glared at Laura again. ‘And another thing – has he been hanging around here, while I've been away in Middlesbrough?'

Thor's face went blank and he stared at the opposite wall, but Laura came to life with a rush.

‘What the hell are you getting at, Jackie?' she snapped furiously. ‘Ever since you came in, you've been insinuating something … are you going punchy, the same way as Joe Blunt?'

‘Look here, you bitch …'

‘Don't you “bitch” me, Jackie Stott!' she spat. ‘If you're trying to make out that Geordie Armstrong and me are having it off, you must be off your bloody rocker. You're bad enough, but
him
!'

‘Look, lay off or I'll fetch you one around the ear!' yelled the furious Jackie.

By way of reply, Laura pulled off one of her shoes and tried to hit him in the face with the stiletto heel. He parried it easily and slapped her face with a force that almost unhinged her head.

Thor sat with a pale, composed face while the other two fought, each pouring a steady stream of abuse at the other. The Dane was used to such scenes and, much as he disliked them, he had the sense to wait his opportunity without interfering.

This one was shorter than usual. The girl pulled away and stood barefooted, panting and enraged. She tried to straighten her dress and pushed her genuinely red hair back from her face.