The hot shower reinvigorated my body and brought my thoughts back to the present.
As I emerged I caught the smell of freshly grilled sausages and bacon. Jenny had woken, too. Breakfast was on the go. I strolled into the kitchen.
‘Go and dry yourself. You’ll soak the floor … and put some clothes on.’ Jenny laughed as she caught my naked rump with the tea towel. I disappeared back into the bathroom, sharpish.
I re-emerged, dried and groomed, with a broad grin across my face. Tea and breakfast were laid out on the table.
‘This is the business,’ I rubbed my hands together. ‘Am I going to get this treatment every day before work?’
‘No, you bloody well will not, you cheeky beggar, this is a treat for your first day,’ Jenny retorted, sitting down beside me.
‘Is Becky still asleep?’ I asked. Our daughter’s usual habit was to wake before the local rooster.
Jenny winked at me. ‘Be grateful Robert, at least I get some time alone with you.’
‘Well, you should be seeing a lot more of me now,’ I said, as I tucked into my food. ‘You might even catch me coming home in uniform once in a while.’
‘Is that a promise?’ Jenny gave me that look again and then laughed as I poked the end of a sausage out from between my lips.
She seemed to enjoy making love to me in uniform. There must have been something about it, the feel of the cloth or my appearance, which allowed her to escape into fantasy. She’d told me that she wished she had known me when I had been a soldier.
I did my best to avoid the topic. The more we talked about the army the more I had to lie. I hated lying to Jenny. She was one person I just wished I could tell, but all it would take would be one slip, one careless remark. Then I’d be looking over my shoulder for the rest of my life.
Jenny had told me several times she would have liked to have seen a picture of me in my dress uniform. But, thanks to the temper of an old girlfriend I had very few photographs. I could live with that. But what did make me sad was that Becky would never see them either. Jenny said that she was bound to want to know about my past, what I had done, where I had been. Now, there was very little to show her and even less I could tell her.
‘If it’s all right with you,’ I said. ‘I’ll use your jalopy to drive into London. I wouldn’t want to leave the Audi on some of the streets in Stoke Newington.’
Jenny agreed. She had never really got used to the little 2CV Citroen. The bigger car was comfortable and roomy. I reckon she hoped that I would stick with the idea.
After breakfast I transferred my cleaned and pressed police uniform into a mixture of holdalls and carrier bags and loaded up the car. By eight o’clock, I was on the A1 heading south. At nine-fifteen I was parking in a street behind Stoke Newington Police Station.
I stopped, looked up at the impressive, modern building and paused for a moment. A new chapter in my life was about to begin.
Reflection over, I grabbed my bags, slipped my warrant card over my breast pocket to display the ID and walked into the rear station yard.
At the back door I was let in by a young WPC who directed me up the stairs to the Chief Superintendent’s clerk’s office. I found it easily. At the desk was an old PC scribbling away on some paper. I waited for him to look up.
I had seen the type before. Behind his horn-rimmed half-moon spectacles, he had an air of extreme busyness, intolerance and self-importance. People like this PC thought they ran their divisions. He continued scribbling, hardly seeming to acknowledge my existence. I forced a quiet cough, just enough get his attention.
‘I won’t keep you a moment,’ came the terse reply.
He waited several moments before looking up.
‘Right, what can I do for you?’ he, finally asked.
‘Inspector Finlay. I have an appointment to see your chief super at ten. I’ve come a little early to give me a chance to stash my kit.’
The clerk PC stood quickly, his spectacles falling onto the desk. ‘I’m sorry, sir, didn’t realise who you were, you being in plain clothes an’ all. You must be the Inspector from Royalty?’
‘Yes, that’s right.’ I found it hard to contain my pleasure at his embarrassment. I had no doubt that my treatment would have been quite different had I been a fellow PC.
‘If you’d like to follow me, I’ll show you where your office and locker are. Mr Sinclair is in his office. He’s got Special Branch and the anti-terrorist mob with him, discussing last week’s shooting. Bad business, that.’
He picked up my bags and we headed down the corridor.
‘I read about it – the PC that was wounded, how is he?’ I asked.
‘Looks like he’s gonna be OK. One of those amazing stories: the bullet hit his whistle. If it hadn’t, it would have gone through his heart.’
‘And what about the PC who was killed, was he married?’
‘No, thank God. His parents took it bad, mind. Poor bugger.’
I followed the clerk into a small office on the second floor. There were stains on the walls where notice-boards had once hung. The solitary steel locker hung open, a desk and chair stood pushed into the corner. It was pretty seedy.
The clerk obviously sensed my reaction.
‘I left it as it is – I thought you’d like to arrange things to your taste.’ He rubbed the back of his neck.
‘It’ll do.’ I shrugged off my blazer and hung it on the locker door. ‘Will Mr Sinclair still be available to see me at ten?’
‘I should think so, he’s arranged for the early-turn Inspector to show you around.’
‘Any idea what he’s got lined up for me?’
‘It’s more than my job’s worth to say. If you could be in my office for about five to, I’ll tell him you’re here.’
I shut the door behind the clerk and turned to survey my new workplace. It wasn’t too bad an office, in fact. The walls were bare, but a white board here, a plant there, the desk and chair moved, the locker in the corner, and it would be fine. Not a bad start; after all, there weren’t many stations in the Met that had the space to allow inspectors their own office.
I unpacked my bags and put on my uniform. I hadn’t worn it for several years but, thankfully, it still fitted perfectly. At my age, I was getting used to the fact that some of my clothing, particularly trousers, seemed to shrink in the wardrobe.
I was back in the clerk’s office with five minutes to spare.
He gave an approving nod on seeing my freshly ironed tunic. ‘That’s better, sir. Now there’s no mistaking who you are.’ He managed a half-smile. ‘Mr Sinclair said to take you straight in as soon as you arrived.’
I followed the clerk into the Chief Superintendent’s office where I was greeted by a giant of a man who stood fully six foot six. I felt dwarfed as he stepped from behind an oak desk.
‘Ian Sinclair. You must be Bob Finlay.’ He extended an open hand to greet me. It felt like David meeting Goliath.
We chatted for over an hour. I warmed to the Chief Super immediately. He was a down-to-earth Scot, straight-talking and sincere. Both his ears were notched and scarred as if his head had been regularly crushed in a rugby scrum. Far from making him ugly, the look only served to complement his warm and benevolent nature.
I learned that I was to take charge of the shift that had lost the PC the previous week. They were early turn that day. Their current Inspector, David Heathcote, was part of an accelerated promotion course and would be taking over as Personnel Inspector to widen his experience.
I detected a note of bitterness in Sinclair’s voice when he mentioned Heathcote’s name, but it was no more than that. Sinclair didn’t seem the type to make his personal feelings known to others.
Our conversation wandered on to other subjects: local problems; the history of the building; mutual acquaintances; but finally Sinclair steered the conversation on to the army. He was curious about my military career and why it had come so quickly to an end.
I gave him the pat story, describing how I had been unfortunate enough to be hit by a sniper’s bullet while on patrol with the Royal Artillery in Northern Ireland. I’d told it so many times it may as well have been true. Sinclair accepted it without question. Not only was it plausible, a check on my police record would confirm it: the file contained no mention of the SAS.
I returned to my office and had just finished unpacking my bags when there was a knock at the door. A fresh-faced young Inspector stood before me.
‘Bob Finlay, I presume.’ The young lad held out his hand.
‘Yes, but you have me at a disadvantage.’
I immediately regretted my choice of words. Did I sound too formal? Perhaps the Royalty posting had made me slightly pompous. I’d have to watch that.
‘David Heathcote,’ said the young Inspector. ‘I’ve come to show you around, introduce you to the key people, that type of thing.’
Introductions over, I followed Heathcote through the door and along the corridor. I struggled to keep up with him. He was a small man with a bustling walk. He obviously knew the inside of the police station like the back of his hand and in no time at all I had lost my bearings. I recalled that there were three floors and a basement, the CID office and the canteen, all of them, as well as the stairways and corridors between, filled with people. This was a busier division than I had ever worked on before, and by the time we reached the PCs’ writing room I was totally confused. Next to my enthusiastic, newly promoted peer, I felt very middle aged.
Tour concluded, we adjourned to the canteen. I bought the teas and sat down opposite my guide.
‘Nice building; everything new?’ I asked.
‘Started April 1988 and finished May 1990, just four weeks behind schedule,’ Heathcote answered precisely.
‘The people that work here like it?’
‘There have been a few problems. They’ll get used to it soon enough, though.’
The hint of arrogance in Heathcote’s confident explanations gave me a clue to the bitter tone I had heard earlier in Sinclair’s voice. I wouldn’t have been surprised to find that Heathcote was very intolerant of people whose ideas were at odds with his own.
‘You’re ex-Royalty, aren’t you?’
‘Yes.’ I replied. Many people seemed to find the role of a protection officer fascinating. I knew what was coming and I was right. I wondered if my fake smile gave away my real thoughts.
‘What’s it like being that close to Royalty?’
I resisted the temptation to be facetious. ‘You get used to it. They realise you have a job to do so they carry on with their lives as if you weren’t there. They’re normally very easy to get along with and if they have a wobbly you just keep out of their way.’
‘There must be a lot of perks.’
‘Not thinking of putting in for it are you?’
‘No, just wondered, that’s all.’
‘Well, I won’t miss it.’ I emptied my cup and stood. ‘Nice to meet you, David, perhaps you could introduce me to your relief before they go off?’
‘Sure. They’ll gather outside the station office at about two. I’ll see you then.’
At five to two, Heathcote introduced me as the relief’s new Inspector. There were only eight or ten officers going off shift. The rest had prisoners and paperwork.
I noted the way some of the younger ones looked at me and the glances that they exchanged. I guessed what they were thinking. Bit old for this isn’t he?
I wondered if they were right.