Law & Order Read online

  ‘You bloody well shut your face, Carol,’ he heard Sandra shout at her sister.

  ‘Hey now that’s enough of that, miss, or I’ll put my hand round your bloody face,’ Dolly shouted.

  He smiled in anticipation of Sandra’s retort.

  ‘You should tell her to leave off. Saying my friends have got fleas.’ His youngest girl, at eight, always had to have the last word. He was proud of her for that.

  ‘I never!’ Carol was eleven, and large-boned like her mother.

  ‘Well, just pack it in, the pair of you,’ Dolly said, ‘and help your sister, will you, or you’re gonna be late for school.’

  ‘Well, she won’t finish, will she?’ the older girl argued.

  ‘Look, you ain’t finished your cornflakes yet.’

  ‘You didn’t get me no sugar like I asked,’ Sandra said. He heard Dolly bang the cupboard closed then slam the jar of sugar on the table. ‘There! Now, come on.’

  ‘I don’t like them. They’re all soggy.’

  ‘Well, you get and eat them. You’ve hardly eaten anything.’

  ‘She dawdles and plays with her smelly friends – I’m gonna go without her,’ Carol announced.

  ‘Can’t Dad take us to school in the car?’ he heard Sandra ask. She knew better than to expect her Mum to take them.

  ‘He might as well. S’got nothing better to bloody well do. Go and get him up, Carol – get your shoes on first.’ He nodded to himself. More ache.

  ‘I will!’ Sandra said.

  ‘You finish your breakfast,’ Dolly began. ‘Sandra!’

  ‘I’m going to get Dad up,’ Sandra insisted.

  ‘Carol! Will you move yourself?’ Dolly snapped. ‘Put that comic away.’

  ‘Bloody hell! I’m not doing nothing. Taking it out on me.’

  ‘Less of your cheek or you’ll feel my hand.’

  Lynn made no attempt to get up. He’d had another late night. Daylight pushing through the curtains made sleep difficult, if not impossible. He closed his eyes and pretended he was asleep when Sandra came into the room and along the side of the bed.

  ‘Dad? You awake, Dad?’ she said, shaking him.

  Without opening his eyes, he grabbed her and pulled her onto the bed and kissed her. ‘Got you.’ He squeezed her against himself. ‘Ah, come in to bed for five minutes and cuddle my back.’

  ‘Can I?’ she said.

  He knew getting into their bed when he was there was something special to her.

  ‘You gotta go to school, haven’t you?’ he said, and saw her nose wrinkle in disappointment. ‘What was your Mum shouting about just now?’

  ‘Oh,’ Sandra said with a vague head shake as if having forgotten. ‘Carol won’t get herself ready. We’re gonna be late for school. Will you take us, Dad?’ She pulled at the buttons on his monogrammed pyjama jacket.

  ‘What’s the matter with walking? You lazy begger.’

  ‘We’re gonna be late though. We’ll get the stick if we’re late.’

  ‘They’d better bloody well not give you the stick. I’ll be down that school and give them the stick.’ As he looked at her he felt a quake of emotion in his chest that resembled a palpitation. That was how much he loved his kids. He couldn’t look at them without feeling that. ‘Haven’t you got a kiss for your Dad?’

  She had, and placed her lips against his and locked her arms around his neck. ‘Oh, only one?’ he said. She giggled and kissed him again. Her lips were soft and wet and eager against his. ‘All right, just one more, then I’ll think about getting up and driving you to school.’

  It was a game which he enjoyed as much as her. She seemed a bit disappointed when he eased her off the bed.

  ‘Right! I’m coming down right now. Tell Carol she’d better be ready.’

  Sandra went across to the door and stood with it open. She hung on the two door handles, and pressed her face against the edge of the door as he started out of his pyjamas.

  ‘I don’t wanna go to school, Dad. I got a tummy ache.’

  He gave her a look. ‘You sure, Sandra?’

  She avoided his eyes. ‘I have, Dad.’

  ‘Come ’ere,’ he said. He stooped to her when she sidled up to him and rubbed her tummy. ‘How ’bout we go to school in my car and see how it is when we get there?’

  She didn’t say anything and he accepted her silence as assent.

  ‘Good girl: Down you go, love,’ he said, straightening up. ‘Tell Mum I won’t be long.’

  Both girls travelled in the front of the grey Jaguar as he drove them to school: Sandra was next to him and most of the way had her head against his arm, her thumb in her mouth. Carol enjoyed school and as soon as the car drew up at the gates she jumped out, throwing a perfunctory ‘Bye, Dad’ over her shoulder.

  ‘You all right now, sweetheart, are you?’ Lynn asked, putting his hand on the younger girl’s head. She nodded. ‘There’s a love. C’mon, give us a kiss or you’ll be the biggest dimwit in the class.’

  Sandra kissed him, then hesitated at the door. ‘You gonna get a job today, are you, Dad?’ she asked.

  ‘Yeah, ’course I am, darling,’ he said, a little surprised by her question, but guessed her Mum had been going on about it again. ‘Otherwise we won’t be able to pay for food at the supermarket, will we?’

  ‘Mum won’t get cross then, she won’t.’

  He thought about that, touched by his daughter’s con­cern. He assumed all kids were concerned that their parents got on together. He had vague memories from an early age of how he used to worry when his parents rowed, how he wanted them to make the peace, how anxious he felt when they refused to. Kids didn’t change.

  ‘What sort of job would you like me to get, Sandy? Would you like me to be a policeman?’

  Sandra shook her head.

  The school bell sounded. They both reacted to it. ‘Come on, there’s the bell.’ He kissed her. ‘Don’t worry, love: I’ll get a nice job. I’ll see you lunchtime.’

  ‘Will you come and meet us?’

  ‘Don’t think so. Be a good girl. Bye, darling.’

  She climbed out of the car and ran into school.

  Lynn sat staring after her for a moment, thinking about what she had said, and how she’d reacted to the current situation with Dolly. Despite himself he couldn’t understand the sort of state his wife was getting herself into, it wasn’t as if they hadn’t been here before. However, he knew he ought to try and do something about it before it really upset the kids.

  Dolly didn’t react when he let himself into the kitchen. She was at the sink, washing up. He felt the teapot on the table. Cold. He didn’t really want tea. With some uncertainty about her reaction he moved in behind his wife and pressed his hips into her soft rear end. It had become bigger, he noticed, since she had got her own car. He wasn’t encouraged in this gesture but as she didn’t blank him either, he persisted, making a grinding motion against her, feeling himself getting erect. He reached round her and forced his large hands down the front of her skirt.

  ‘How many loaves of bread today, Mrs Lynn?’ he said, managing to get one hand into the top of her pants, where he felt the soft flesh of her stomach, the coarseness of her pubic hair.

  She shrugged him off. ‘Don’t mess around, Jack. I’m not in the mood.’

  ‘Oh, terrific,’ he said, his manner becoming defensive. ‘Well, how about some breakfast then?’

  ‘You know where it is.’ She didn’t turn from washing up.

  ‘All right, Dolly, you got the hump. What’s the problem? What’s wrong?’ Acknowledging what he knew to be wrong would have given her too much advantage.

  ‘You make me tired, Jack. You make me so bloody tired.’ The words burst out as she turned to confront him. ‘You keep on, don’t you? You keep pushing your luck. You can’t be like other men, you won’t be sat
isfied, will you?’

  Still he refused to acknowledge the problem. ‘What are you on about?’

  ‘You bloody well know,’ she said, her voice going up an octave. ‘You make me tired. Well, just don’t expect me to be waiting for you when you get nicked again. I’m not gonna wait around twenty years till I’m an old woman.’

  ‘You having a brainstorm, Dolly? I should think you must be.’ The momentum of the argument carried him, making him self-righteous. ‘I should think you must be,’ he repeated.

  ‘Oh, don’t take me for a complete idiot, Jack. I know you’re at it.’ Tears were filling her eyes.

  ‘What makes you think so?’ he demanded. ‘C’mon.’

  ‘You think I don’t know you after all this time? How you behave? You’re putting one together, I can tell.’

  ‘You ought to be a detective, that’s what.’

  ‘I’d be a lot better off,’ she retorted. ‘You can’t be like other men. You gotta be at it the whole time. S’like a disease… well, I won’t be here, Jack. I’ll take the kids and go.’

  He changed tack to try and gain ground. It was no use lying to her, and when he exploded she saw through that. ‘Well, who d’you think I do it for?’

  ‘You!’ she said. ‘Who d’you think?’

  ‘Don’t talk silly. You think you’d have a nice home, two cars, and a bit of spending money? You think you’d have all that if I was working down the road in a factory – assuming I could get a job, that is? There are one or two people out of work, in case you haven’t noticed!’

  ‘Other people seem to manage, Jack. Least they know their husbands ain’t gonna go away for twenty years. The thought of it’s too much. I can’t stand it. I get so frightened when you’re out nowadays. One time, well, one time it almost didn’t matter, there didn’t seem too much at stake. We were younger and could cope better.’ She had become quieter, but tears were ready to spill down her cheeks.

  Pausing and looking at her, he said, ‘You really want me to go and get a job?’ expecting her to recognise what punishment that would be for him. He was disappointed.

  ‘You could do, Jack. It wouldn’t be easy, not for the sort of money you’d get. But we’ve got everything we need, ’int we? You could go mini-cabbing with Tommy,’ she suggested.

  That idea had been raised more than once. On occasions he did help her brother out, and accepted there were worse ways of earning a living. At least mini-cabbing meant you were your own boss.

  ‘I s’pose that ain’t too much like collar,’ he said, getting a response from his wife that he liked.

  ‘You mean it, Jack?’ she said, coming to him. ‘You’d do it?’

  ‘I tell you,’ he said, avoiding a direct lie, ‘I weren’t having too much luck putting this one together. The way it was going I’d be doing myself a right favour giving it a miss. I’ll give it a try with Tommy, if he can put a bit my way.’ He put his arms around her and felt her relax now. ‘The thing is though, Dolly,’ he began, like the thought had just occurred to him, ‘I’m a villain. ‘Something comes up I’ll have to have it!’

  Alarm flashed in her eyes as though he had pushed the wrong switch. She tried to wrench away from him, until he smiled.

  ‘No, I’ll give it a miss.’ His words carried a ring of conviction.

  ‘Promise me, Jack. It’s for the girls’ sake as well. I mean, think of them.’

  ‘If you get me breakfast,’ he said.

  ‘You promise me, Jack?’

  ‘Yeah, I promise,’ he said. ‘I’ll talk to Tommy.’

  She kissed him. ‘What would you like to eat?’

  He smiled. ‘How about you?’ He pressed his crotch into hers.

  Because of the increasing tension between them it had been a while since they had made love. He was less inhibited than Dolly and wasn’t concerned that they were in the kitchen.

  ‘I’ve got my gloves on,’ she said.

  ‘Don’t let that stop you,’ he said as he pulled her hard against himself.

  She ripped the gloves off.

  Reaching down behind her, he raised her skirt and ran his hand between her thighs. She didn’t attempt to push him off as he eased his hand into the side of her pants and stroked her vagina from behind her. There he discovered her need was as great as his.

  ‘Not here, Jack,’ she said. ‘Someone might come to the door.’

  Her protest was feeble and he ignored it. The idea of having sex in the kitchen appealed to him. It was reminiscent in its spontaneity of sex on the back seats of cars. He had had it off more than enough there. He first made love to Dolly on the back seat of his old Ford Cortina, and a lot of times since. There were good memories of those days, and he felt a soft yearning for them as the past would never disappoint him.

  Unzipping her skirt, he eased it over her hips. Another faint protest was stifled with his mouth against hers. His fingers undid the buttons on the shirt of his that she was wearing, but he didn’t remove it. Instead he reached round and unfastened her bra. She had large breasts that hung low on her chest. She didn’t protest when he lowered her onto the table, but she seemed a little surprised, with a small, sudden intake of breath, when the naked part of her back touched the cold surface. He removed her pink pants. He knew she was still worried in case anyone called to the kitchen door, but that only increased the excitement of this for him as he eased her legs apart where the edge of the table cut across the backs and knelt into her, kissing her vagina. Soft, inhibited words of endearment emerged on her quickening breath. They grew louder and louder.

  When he stood and unzipped his trousers, his penis found its way out of the tangle of pants and shirt-tails like a jack-in-a-box. Kicking his trousers and pants off, he walked forward into the vee of her legs and pushed into her.

  At moments such as this he told himself there was too much at risk to be leading the sort of life he led. He loved his wife, despite their occasional bits of domestic, and loved his daughters too much to be separated from them. The problem was that such moments were fleeting and bore little relation to the real need he had for being at risk.

  #

  There were a lot of faces in the snooker hall, youngsters who got there early to get their tables booked, all fancying themselves serious players. Jack Lynn wasn’t looking for a game but for someone who could help out on his bit of work. Ducking to look beneath the lamps that were strung low over the tables, he was surprised to see Clifford Harding. Harding almost miscued when he saw him, unable to keep surprise off his face.

  ‘Jack!’ he called as he straightened and moved around the table. ‘How’s your luck, son?’

  If Harding hadn’t spoken first he would have turned away as though not seeing him. It wasn’t him he was looking for, and after what Bobby Shaw told him about his result he was now wary. He didn’t want to believe this villain would turn to grassing but Lynn couldn’t avoid his doubts.

  ‘Terrible,’ he replied. He moved between the tables and joined him. ‘I heard you had your collar felt – didn’t expect to see you around.’

  ‘Yeah, more aggravation than enough, wan’ it – oh unlucky, son,’ Harding said to his opponent as he tried but didn’t make a shot. ‘Watch me nick this now.’ He moved along the table and took the blue.

  ‘The Robbery Squad, weren’t it?’ Lynn said, while Harding chalked his cue.

  ‘Yeah. There was a nice one I was going after,’ Harding said. ‘Then I went and got a pull on my form, that’s all. Then they went and found a shooter at my place, they did. I must be getting silly as a fucking goat.’ He scoffed as he lined up the pink. It went for him. ‘That do you?’

  ‘I’d say so,’ his opponent said, and uncrumpled a five pound note from his pocket.

  ‘You wanna double it? Have a chance to get it back?’

  ‘No. I gotta shoot off anyway.’

  ‘Five quid,
it might be the end of the world,’ Harding said as he came back and joined Lynn.

  ‘He thought he was going to take your five quid, Cliff,’ Lynn said with a grin, beginning to feel easier about him now. ‘You did well to pull clear of that other bit of trouble.’

  ‘Didn’t come to enough, did it, bunging the Squad? They all wanted a taste, the hungry bastards – well, according to the di. They took every penny I had. That weren’t all though, Jack. It fucked up this one I was going after, that’s the nause. I got to find some work.’

  Lynn shrugged. ‘Blags are easy enough to find, Cliff. You kept your liberty, that’s the important thing.’

  ‘Sure I did. It’s like the Sword of: Damocles over my head, even though I bunged that di. You can’t trust them, can you?’

  ‘I wouldn’t rely on it,’ Lynn said. ‘I’ll catch you later, Cliff.’ He started away.

  ‘What?’ Harding began. ‘You fancy a game? – the table’s paid for.’

  ‘Just want to see if Billy Braden’s been in,’ Lynn said over his shoulder. Then something made him turn back. ‘Set them up.’

  The man he was looking for hadn’t been in so far this evening.

  ‘His mate Alan was in this afternoon,’ the overweight, bald hall manager informed him, sweating from the least effort. ‘Nicked a nice few quid, he did. I thought there was going to be trouble. I think I heard Alan say he had gone to Spain for a holiday.’

  The information surprised Lynn. Braden had half com­mitted to the blag and he was looking to get him firmed up. He didn’t want to believe this.

  ‘That can’t be right,’ he said.

  ‘S’what I heard, Jack. Down to Marbella. I wouldn’t mind some of that.’

  Lynn’s gaze fell on sandwiches stacked in the glass case on the counter. ‘How old are they, Peter?’ he asked. ‘Drawing a pension yet, are they?’

  ‘She only made them this afternoon. You want one?’

  ‘Do I fuck. Tell Billy’s mate to give me a bell, will you?’ He went back to the table, where Harding was racking the balls