AND IT’S SGT HARDING TO YOU.
MARCUS HARDING NERVOUSLY INSERTED THE KEY into the ignition of Yarrow’s Riley RME. He had driven his father’s Sunbeam-Talbot 90 several times but did not yet have a licence. Harry Rawlings sat beside him; WPC Mary McDonell sat placidly in the back. For all the emotion she showed, she might well have been a bag of coal. She showed no interest in the case, in the plight of the missing girl, or in either of the two detectives sitting in front of her, simply sitting there, cowlike, looking neither to the right nor left.
Harding crunched the gears as he set off, kangaroo jumping, lurching, jerking, none too straight, working the wheel too hard to counteract his swerving start.
Fuck me, thought Rawlings, Nazi Mucus can’t even fucking well drive. Unless it’s a Panzer tank perhaps. ‘Here, Harding, let me take over; you’ll have us in the ditch if you carry on like this.’
‘I can’t do that; it’s the inspector’s car, and he entrusted it to me. And it’s Sgt Harding to you.’
‘Yes sir, Sergeant Harding,’ was Rawlings’ sarcastic response, wincing as the driver missed his gear change again with an ominous crunch that jerked the car forwards again with a lurch. ‘For Christ’s sake, use your bloody clutch. Tha’ can’t change gears without the bloody clutch.’
Rawlings was feeling particularly bilious; he had a deep, lurking hangover headache behind his eyes and, although he now accepted Yarrow’s reason as to why he had been overlooked for sergeant, that didn’t mean he had to like it or that he did not still resent Marcus Harding. Sorry, Sgt Marcus Harding.
‘I know, I know, it’s just that I’ve never driven this car before. It’s different, like.’
‘All the bloody same, cars, all of them. No difference between ‘em at all, clutch, brake, accelerator, all in the same place.’
‘Shut up and let me drive,’ Harding answered crossly, sweating heavily as he gingerly negotiated his way through the traffic outside the hospital.
‘Jesus Christ, it would be quicker to walk at this rate.’
‘Well, get out and bloody well walk then.’
‘I will, stop the car, and I’ll walk. Go on, stop the bloody car.’
‘I would, but I don’t know where the fucking brakes are!’ Marcus snapped angrily.
Rawlings sat back and then burst out laughing. ‘Don’t know where the fucking brakes are, good one Sarge, good one,’ slapping him lightly on the shoulder. ‘Sorry, luv,’ he apologised to WPC Mary McDonell in the back seat who sat totally oblivious to the bickering in front and chewed on a fingernail instead.