‘Worked out alright for you, hasn’t it?’ Taylor said, as they started off on their thirty-second walk to the Prince Albert.
‘How do you mean, sir?’
Taylor looked at his watch. ‘Three minutes past five, No Knock. None of that “sir” bollocks. And I meant the shift patterns. Two days at work and you’ve already got a weekend off. Carry on at this rate and you’ll be doing even less work than the Chief Constable.’
‘That’s always the aim,’ Jack said, smiling.
Taylor chuckled. ‘I like your style.’
Although the noise level and the number of people in the pub was the same as it had been the night before, tonight’s atmosphere seemed more jovial to Jack. Perhaps it was just because he was in a better frame of mind. Either way, he liked it. And having two days off work meant he would be able to enjoy it.
‘Do you reckon that’ll have worked, then?’ he asked the DI. ‘McCann, I mean.’
‘Who knows,’ Taylor said, more as a statement than a question. ‘Not really my problem if he doesn’t. He’s the one who’ll be walking funny. Meanwhile, the good people of Mildenheath get to sleep quietly in their beds. Everyone’s a winner.’
Jack found it hard to argue with that. Although his instinct was to play things on the straight and narrow, he was starting to see that just wasn’t viable. Not in this world. Criminals rarely played by the rules, so he didn’t see the harm in the occasional sleight of hand to give the police an advantage.
‘When are the others coming down?’ Jack asked, raising his voice to cut above the rumble of voices.
‘Whenever they’ve finished. I wanted to have a chat with you first.’
Instinctively, Jack’s stomach lurched as he heard that, but he had a feeling that he wasn’t in for a bollocking.
‘I think we could say you pulled it out the bag today, No Knock,’ Taylor said, as the pair sat down at a table in the corner. ‘Alright, so it wasn’t exactly something we could use to put him inside, but prosecutions take time. We’ve got enough on our plates. If the Home Office ever listen to the Philips Commission and set up an independent prosecutor, fine. But right now we need to pick our battles.’
Jack’s eyes were taken by the sight of the barmaid from last night, Helen, appearing behind the bar. She was dressed far more revealingly than she had been last night, and seemed to look around the pub as she took her place, her eyes landing on Jack before she smiled at him. He thanked his lucky stars it was his round next.
‘So I shoved the donkey in the suitcase and shipped him off to Beirut,’ Taylor said, Jack’s attention being yanked back to the table.
‘You what?’
‘Yeah, didn’t think you were paying much attention. Mind you, can hardly blame you when she’s waving a pair of norks like that in your face. And you can wipe that innocent look from your face, too. I wasn’t born yesterday.’
‘Dunno what you mean,’ Jack said, smirking as he brought his pint to his lips and took a swig.
‘My arse you don’t. Why don’t you go up and ask her if you can have a go?’
‘A go?’
‘Well, yeah. She’s hardly marriage material, is she? But you might as well get your tuppence worth out of her. Beer’s bloody pricey enough. It’s a bit like nicking the little soaps out the hotel bathroom.’
Jack didn’t know whether to laugh or protest. He found Helen very attractive, but he wasn’t quite sure that Taylor’s selection of chat-up lines would be the best ones to use. No, he’d wait until it was his round. Then he’d go up, order his drinks and strike up conversation.
‘So. Are you enjoying it? The job, I mean.’
Jack thought about this for a moment. ‘I think so, yeah.’
‘Well don’t sound too bloody enthusiastic.’
‘It’s felt like a long couple of days. A baptism of fire, if you like.’
‘There’s no way of easing you in gently, I’m afraid. This is what the job’s like. There’s always Bejams.’
Jack smiled. ‘Nah, I think I’ll be alright.’
‘I think you will too. Especially if we see a bit more of that attitude from this afternoon. You need to stand up for yourself, lad. That warrant card’s not just a bit of paper. It’s a bit of paper that says you’re the law. That’s a powerful thing. You don’t need to go pussyfooting around people like Gary McCann, never mind any of the other scrotes in this town. The law-abiding, tax-paying citizens trust us to get the job done and keep them safe. Sometimes — most of the time — that takes a bit of swagger, a bit of swinging your bollocks around. You know what I mean? And that’s just out on the streets. That’s the easy bit. It’s when you’re back at the nick that things can get heavy. Sometimes you want to watch out for the other coppers more than you do the cons. Some of them are bigger crooks than the ones on the outside.’
Jack’s interest was piqued.
‘You’ll find out who they are in good time. In the meantime, it’s best to just be careful what you say, and who you say it to. That thin blue line is pretty bloody thin sometimes.’
He’d heard stories while he was out on the beat about some of the more senior officers being bent, but this was the first time someone ranked higher than him had come out and explicitly said it. It was more something that was known but never spoken about, mainly because no-one really knew who was involved. Sometimes it was better to keep quiet and pretend it wasn’t happening.
‘Anyway, No Knock. It’s your round, isn’t it?’
Jack looked at his still-half-full glass, then up at Helen, who was standing behind the bar.
‘I think you might be right,’ he said.