‘Madame Necroma?’ says Sid. ‘Good afternoon, madame. My friend and I would like to avail ourselves of your service.’
‘Both of you?’ says the bird.
‘Exactly,’ says Sid. ‘You have perceived my meaning to the T. We were wondering if there was a possibility of you making a reduction in our case?’
‘I’ll reduce anything you show me,’ says Madame Necroma. ‘Come in, boys. You don’t want to hang about. There’s narks everywhere. It’s getting impossible to turn over a couple of bob without finding a copper.’
She closes the door behind us and we take a gander round the inside of the caravan. ‘Blimey,’ says Sid. ‘I never seen one with a double bed in it before.’
‘It folds away to make a couple of work surfaces,’ says Madame. ‘Now, what can I do to accommodate you? Both together? Or, one at a time? Or one watching? – it’s amazing how popular watching has become lately. I suppose it’s the telly?’
‘What’s the cheapest?’ I ask quickly.
‘One at a time, flat rate,’ says Madame. ‘A quid each.’
‘You go ahead,’ I say to Sid. ‘I’ll give it a miss. I’m not all that keen.’
‘Charming!’ says Madame Necroma.
‘Don’t take it to heart,’ says Sid. ‘It’s a question of bees, not doubting your professional integrity. We’re both the same sign anyway. Scorpio: brooding, sensual, possessive–’
‘Skint!’ says Madame Necroma.
‘I’ll wait for you outside,’ I say to Sid.
‘Right,’ says Sid. ‘Don’t fret. Whatever I learn will be to our mutual advantage. This might be the turning point, Timmo. It could be the best quid you’ve ever spent.’
I am still trying to tell him that I only lent him the money when Madame Necroma pushes me down the steps. She certainly seems in a hurry to get on with it. I suppose Sid’s stars could be on the point of moving into a different quarter. I believe it is a very precise science.
When I get outside I have a quick shufti round the fair and then take a butcher’s at the couples on the common. I soon give this up because the other people who are clocking them are such a disgusting lot. It’s like pornography. There is nothing wrong with it except the kind of person it attracts. It makes you feel dirty to be associated with them.
About ten minutes have gone by and I reckon that Madame Necroma must have finished with Sid. She did not look the type to hang about. I wander back to the caravan and am slightly surprised that there is no sign of Clapham’s answer to Paul Newman. Nor is there any sound from the caravan. Madame must still be gazing intently into her crystal ball. Best to leave them at it rather than interrupt the seance, or whatever it is. Sid would be furious if I spoilt his big moment.
I have just started counting the china alsatians in the caravan windows when I turn and see a female copper surveying me with what would pass for interest in any other bird. I don’t know what it is but I immediately start feeling guilty. My palms get hot and sweaty and when I move it is as if I expected a jemmy to drop out of my trouser leg. I turn away but I am conscious that the bird is still watching me. Perhaps she thinks I am casing the caravans prior to a spot of B. and E.
‘Psssst!’ Do my senses deceive me or is it her making that noise? I turn and she waggles a finger at me and retires behind a trailer. What can she want? Perhaps it is a new way of arresting people. You nip round the corner after PC Niceparts and a blooming great bule bashes you over the nut with his truncheon. Still, what have I got to worry about? I haven’t done anything. I take a deep breath and trip round the side of the trailer – some twit has left an electric cable stretched across the grass. The Bluebird is waiting for me and, I must say, she could take me in charge any day of the week. Neat as a guardsman’s sewing kit and eyes like warm toffee. She has a delicate dust of freckles on her face and her eyelashes flop about like they have just been washed and she can’t do a thing with them. All in all, she looks as if she would find it difficult to straighten a seam in her stocking, let alone arrest anyone.
‘CID?’ she murmurs. She is nodding over my shoulder when she speaks and I am so busy clocking the plus features that for some reason I think she is referring to Sid – we often call him El Cid, anyway.
‘Er – yes,’ I say, not wanting to give too much away. You never know what Sid has been up to.
‘Balham,’ she breathes. ‘Sorry I’m late for our Romeo Victor. Has there been much action?’
I don’t answer at once because I am trying to work out who this Romeo Victor bloke is. Perhaps I misheard her and she said Romany Victor. That would make more sense in our present surroundings. ‘Look,’ I say. ‘I think there’s been a mistake.’
‘You were expecting a man.’ To my surprise her lip starts to tremble. It is a nice lip, as is its plump little friend underneath, and a wave of sympathy runs through my Y-fronts.
‘Only Sid,’ I say.
‘I don’t know Sid,’ she says. ‘I’ve only just joined the station.’
‘Balham,’ I say. ‘Oh yes, you said.’
‘I won’t let you down,’ says the bird. ‘I may only be a woman but inside me beats the heart of a man.’
‘Blimey!’ I say. ‘I bet that made the Police Gazette. It’s wonderful what surgeons can do these days, isn’t it?’
For a moment, I think the bird is going to burst into tears.
‘You’re making fun of me!’ she accuses. ‘I was referring to Elizabeth the First’s words at Tilbury.’
‘Oh, them,’ I say. ‘Yes, well, you should have made yourself clear. I missed that episode when it was on the telly. What precisely are you trying to say to me?’
‘I’m trying to say that you can rely on me,’ she says. ‘I won’t let you down. I don’t care what they’re doing in there. I won’t be shocked. Just say the word and I’ll be right with you – oh!’ While I am wondering what the hell she is talking about she suddenly whips a pair of handcuffs from under her skirt and slaps them on my wrists. God knows where she keeps her truncheon.
‘Don’t look surprised!’ she hisses. ‘Somebody’s watching us from the window. I’ll pretend to arrest you.’
I glance up at the window of Madame Necroma’s caravan and am not a little taken aback to see Sid blinking down at me. He looks strangely flushed and dishevelled. Maybe it is the surprise of seeing me being led off by one of the female fuzz. I raise my manacled mitts along with my eyebrows and his boat race is joined by Madame Necroma’s. She is looking a bit on the heated side and I can’t help wondering what they have been doing. Surely it is beyond the realms of possibility that kapok karate has been indulged in? Before I can indulge the horrible thought to excess, the female copper has led me round the corner and is feeling in the pocket of her tunic.
‘Sorry about that,’ she says, sounding like Barbara Cartland watching one of her pekes relieve itself against your ankle. ‘I thought they might think it was a bit fishy if they saw us hanging about outside the caravan – oh no!’
Her face goes all horror-struck like Harold Wilson looking at the latest trade figures and I am swift to realise that something is wrong. ‘Look,’ I say. ‘I don’t want to sound unsympathetic and I always used to enjoy Z Cars, but what is going on around here?’
‘I’ve lost the key to the handcuffs,’ she says. ‘Oh gosh. You’re going to think I’m an awful goose.’
‘At the very least,’ I say. ‘Look, you could get arrested for this.