CHAPTER ONE
Mid-March
……He had never understood why he chose those glasses; and the moustache. He just knew that they did the job he required of them. He walked along Lancaster Road and soon found the address. He opened the gate and looked around. It was early afternoon, quiet; his presence was a matter of indifference to anyone who was nearby.
He closed the gate, went down the steep steps to the basement flat, clinging to the metal railing. Before he could even knock on the door, it opened. Not a word was spoken and he stepped inside, and suddenly he was in his ‘other world’. She nodded to the table and without hesitation he placed the envelope on it. She pointed to a room. He re-emerged a few minutes later. He walked to the school desk positioned in the middle of the room and stood to attention…..
Mid-November
For years he had wanted to use the line. He knew it was corny but he also thought that it was brilliant. Many years earlier, he had shared a flat with a younger colleague who was better looking than him; was always able to come out with just the right thing to say, and was far more successful with the ladies. His flatmate had used the line many times. Now at last, it was his turn.
She lay there holding him. Hesitantly he said, “I wish I could’ve made it more like the movies for you”.
She lifted her head, raised herself on her elbow and ran her fingers through his thinning hair, and said:
“Oh no Spence, it was lovely.”
She kissed him gently and wrapped her arms around him. He pulled the bedclothes up and they lay there together, not saying a word. He was certain that she had never heard of Dr Hook and he was not going to admit to his utter lack of originality.
Outside a wind was picking up and they could hear the naked branches of a tree tapping on the window. Spence held her close, knowing that the chances of this happening again were slim but hoping that it might, perhaps even with her. He listened to the wind and convinced himself that the sex had been brilliant. Then again, for Spence any sex nowadays, that was not self-induced, was brilliant for he was also an old, unreformed romantic. Together, under the covers, shielded from the cold November night, this was heaven.
Spence had no illusions about himself. He wasn’t the ugliest middle-aged guy around but midweek romps under the sheets like this were something other men enjoyed.
Now in his fifties, divorced, greying and experiencing a gradual thickening of the waistline, Spence had become used to spending his evenings alone. His usual company was a glass or few of an Australian Shiraz, some Scandinavian crime noir with John Mayall or BB King providing the soundtrack. An occasion such as this was unusual, fleeting.
“Enjoy it,” Spence told himself. “Enjoy it!”
The phone rang. And again. “I’m sorry. I’ve got to take that.” He leaned over and he knew the moment was gone. He picked up the phone.
“Spence!” As he listened, his inner glow was evaporating.
“On my way.” He put the phone down gently. “I have to go.”
She was already half-dressed. She slipped her shoes on, tied back her long black hair, gave him a quick smile and then was gone from his life. But at least he had got to say the line.
Everyone called him Spence, from the cop on the beat to the Chief Constable whom he had met on two occasions. His name was Winston Spencer Leonard Hargreaves. Spence’s father was well into his forties when his son was born. He had survived the Blitz and North Africa, and spent the rest of his life reminiscing about the war. He adored Churchill and had filled his son’s head full of the great man’s speeches. His only son could be named no other way.
Spence’s sisters were named Clementine and Sarah, after the women in the great man’s life. He rarely saw them, one in Scotland, one in California. Growing up, Spence had had to put up with a lot of crap because of his name but it had hardened him. Not surprising that the Johnny Cash song, ‘A Boy named Sue’, was one of his favourites.
Spence’s world was a narrow one. He had grown up on Swindon’s Penhill estate in what the locals called “the valley”. His had been a rough neighbourhood and his fists had pulled him out of many a scrape.
Penhill Junior School was followed by Headlands. Not TS Magson’s posh grammar school of earlier years but the sort of massive comprehensive school that the Wilson government of the 60s had believed would pull up working class kids like Spence.
“Bullshit!” had been Spence’s opinion of that idea.
By the late ‘90s, Headlands was regularly the worst performing school in Swindon, and once had descended to the bottom of the national school league tables. It would not survive the twenty first century as the developers eagerly eyed its land.
Spence was tough, smart and could kick a half decent football. He survived. After Headlands it was Reading University to study History and Economics with an eye to teaching. A couple of terms at a West London battlefield school convinced him that maybe teaching was not for him. And so it was he moved back to Swindon and started his climb through the ranks of Wiltshire police.
As he stepped out of his Goddard Ave apartment, he felt an icy gust of wind on his face. He could barely see the end of his street.
“It’ll be a busy night for the traffic boys,” he thought. It took him almost fifteen minutes to reach Beechcroft Road.
He parked his car in front of the Chinese takeaway just up from the roundabout, and began walking along Merton Ave. He remembered that years before there had been a great fish ‘n’ chip shop there; he could almost taste the vinegar he used to drain his chips in. Half way up, it could have been a scene from any TV cop show. Blue lights flashing, the chequered tape was in place and a couple of PCs were holding back the growing number of rubber necks.
“For god’s sake, get back inside with your plasma screen TVs, it’s bloody freezing,” Spence said to himself.
Beechcroft Road had been closed off at the Boundary House at Dors Road and at the Crossroads roundabout. He assumed Merton Ave was also blocked off at Okus Grove.
This was always Spence’s way. Don’t barge in, stand back and look. The uniform boys and his DS would have things under control.
Spence could rely on his DS, Nigel Ferguson, having everything organised. Ferguson was good, mused Spence. Too good, and that was a shame, wouldn’t be long before he was kicked upstairs. Up and coming DCs and DSs fought to be on Spence’s team. He might often take the piss and bore the shit out of them as he described the first time he had seen Eric Clapton play. But they knew time on his team was better than months at a police academy.
Merton Ave had some quality old style houses in it: large, solid semi-detached houses so different to the rubbish constructions that were going up on the edge of town. The focus of tonight’s action was one of these large semi-detached places. No car wrecks or rubbish strewn across the gardens in this street like he remembered when he was growing up. Spence’s old man was always rebuilding car engines. The Hargreaves’ garden was always littered with second-hand radiators, spare tyres and bumpers. Spence’s mother hated it. She had buggered off before Spence had even made it to secondary school.
It was a Tuesday night, about 8.30 pm. He regretted not grabbing gloves and a scarf before he came out. He had been offered a ticket a few days before for the Town’s home game against Portsmouth, but knocked it back. Spence was not overly keen on football any more. He was only a small kid when ‘The Town’ beat Arsenal in the 1969 League Cup Final. Don Rogers’ second goal! It would never get better than that, and who had really cared about Swindon Town football once Rogers had left for Crystal Palace?
The autumn leaves were being blown about. The nearby streets were quiet, even the Moonrakers car park was half empty. He studied the scene. The garden was well kept, a neat lawn and trimmed rose bushes, a typically sparse autumn look. No curtains, vertical blinds only. No lights on upstairs. No satellite dish. “Maybe it’s round the back,” Spence thought. A Range Rover