‘You’ll get a friendly reception here,’ Loach offered, shaking his hand firmly, eager to get started on the right foot.
‘You bet,’ McAllister agreed, motioning them to be seated. ‘We’re so understaffed we’d accept trained penguins.’
Loach and McAllister chuckled among themselves at that one. Only a trace of an amused smile crossed Redwood’s stiff upper lip, putting a dampener on McAllister’s jovial mood. In its place appeared a passing cloud, and he hesitated before giving Bob the weather report.
‘However, Bob … that’s not the reason I brought John up here.’
No? Loach silently asked, lifting an eyebrow at the trepidation in Andy’s official announcement.
‘No, I should’ve told you that Mr Redwood’s also a solicitor …’
‘Really?’ Loach didn’t have a clue as to what the sergeant was getting at or where he was heading.
‘Aye …’ There was no escape, so Andy might as well give it to him straight. ‘He’s handling the defence for Big Jess.’
For a moment, Loach didn’t quite comprehend what was being said or where the reference to Big Jess was coming from. The confusion must have registered on his face, as McAllister tried to humour him.
‘Joke, isn’t it? A prostitute on Legal Aid.’
Loach stared at John Redwood, solicitor and would-be blooming Special. He appeared to be the strong silent type. Again McAllister was compelled to blunder into the silence between them.
‘I did tell him that on one thing we are agreed. Big Jess is one hundred per cent guilty.’
Evidently that was not precisely Solicitor Redwood’s conclusion. Nonetheless, he stated his case, and minority opinion, quietly.
‘I believe that my client suffered a contusion of the jaw.’
That was it for Loach. The giant sequoia had outlived his prehistoric purpose. To make his point short and sweet, Loach showed the solicitor his bandaged thumb, feigning a thrust that might just accidentally stick it up his nose.
‘And I didn’t have a bust thumb before I met Big Jess.’
Redwood seemed unperturbed, merely formed the hollow smile of the bureaucrat’s mask. ‘Well, I hope you agree that everyone should have his or her day in court.’
McAllister almost blew a gasket. ‘Even when it’s a waste of the taxpayer’s money?’ He couldn’t conceal his contempt, nor his bewilderment.
Loach was getting ready to stick his still healthy and unfractured other thumb in the solicitor’s face when suddenly there was a commotion over by the piano. Momentarily, all eyes were distracted from ongoing business to find out what the fuss was all about.
Sure enough, it was Freddy Calder, trumpeting his grand entrance onstage. ‘Ta-ra!’
Scattered applause, laughter, hissing and heckling greeted Freddy’s fanfare for the common man, as he turned to wave a prearranged signal to Briggsy the barman. Briggsy then moved to a nearby panel of switches and instantly the entire pub was plunged into darkness.
Above the sudden gasps and surprised shrieks sang the stentorian tones of Freddy Calder, Master of Ceremonies. ‘For your delectation, ladies and gentlemen – the very latest from North Korea –’ he held their breath ‘– bra and panties that glow in the dark!’
Somewhere in the darkness where he was standing, Freddy removed his coat, revealing fluorescent glowing pink knickers and brassiere. By somehow wiggling his middle, the shocking pink lingerie was dancing in the dark.
In spite of the laughter and uproar, the mighty voice of thunder drowned out every other sound.
‘MR CALDER!’
The raucous noise was instantly reduced to hushed murmurs. After a short delay, the lights were switched on again.
Freddy was wearing the pink knickers and bra over his trousers and shirt, and that sight brought the house down in renewed laughter. Trapped as the fool with the house-lights on and the curtain still up, he looked in vain for the tyrant with the thunderous voice.
Sneaking up behind him, Sergeant McAllister, cloud-busting Zeus in the flesh, lowered his voice so that only Freddy could hear.
‘A word in your ear … darling.’
As usual, Bob and Noreen Loach had eaten breakfast in silence, each reading separate sections of the Birmingham Post. In No Man’s Land, the small table between them, rested the final remains of their individually prepared petits déjeuners. The telephone ringing provided a welcome interruption from the monotony, and Loach took the call.
It was Jim, one of the Specials, reporting an attack of the ’flu. ‘Yeah, I hear it. You sound terrible. Well, look, lad, you stay put.’ Loach turned his back toward Noreen to provide some vestige of a private conversation. ‘Don’t worry. It’s not the end of the world … or the end of the Specials that you’ve got the ’flu. Better you stay put. I don’t want the rest of us catching it.’
Making his farewells and wishing Jim a speedy recovery, he banged the ’phone back on its cradle.
‘Flippin’ ’eck! That’s another one off the list.’
When he looked around, Loach realized once again that he was talking to himself. Noreen was stacking the breakfast things into the dishwasher. When he didn’t want her to listen, she listened; and when he did want her to listen, perchance to add to the discussion, she wanted to be elsewhere.
In one of her daytime uniforms, a close-fitting one-piece swimming costume, Anjali Shah was working with Mrs Pearce in the hydrotherapy pool at General Hospital. The middle-aged woman was lying against a support which held her at a 45-degree angle, allowing her to stretch her legs in time to the music playing softly in the background.
‘Very good,’ Anjali soothed her. ‘Now rest, and then we’ll try it again.’
Mrs Pearce heaved a sigh of relief, trying her best to relax. She looked out of the window, which occupied the entire space of the opposite wall. Beyond the thick glass she could distinguish the hazy forms of nature: healthy green shrubs, thriving infant trees … and a shadowy figure moving through them! She nearly jumped out of her skin, tried to scream, yet couldn’t emit a sound from her throat.
The figure reached the window, making erratic, hysterical gestures. Finally Mrs Pearce turned Anjali’s attention to the raving maniac at the window behind her.
Quickly Anjali looked back over her shoulder, but it was only Uncle Ram outside the window making a complete fool of himself – hardly a rare occurrence in her experience. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of acknowledging his presence, let alone his jumping around like a monkey outside the hospital where she was employed, so she paid him no mind and returned to working with her patient – realizing, of course, that ignoring his bizarre attempts to contact her would infuriate him even further.
Mrs Pearce could not even begin to figure out what was going on between her therapist and the lunatic outside. Now mad as a bee, he was waving frantically at her.
‘Try and keep your right leg straight, Mrs Pearce.’
The crazy man was rapping on the window with all his strength and fury, but its thickness prevented any noise from getting through: he might as well be hammering the glass with a rose petal. Still, his desperate efforts were frightening Mrs Pearce, and she was helplessly bewildered.
‘Don’t you think it might be something important?’
Anjali saw that Mrs Pearce had a kind heart,