‘Take it easy now, Jess. I don’t want my thumb bitten again in another wrestling match.’ Especially just when he had got over the first round.
When Big Jess laughed it seemed as if the desks and even the breeze blocks trembled. ‘I’m not here to get even.’ She glanced at Noreen, pointing to a light bruise on her jaw-line. ‘He did that. Arresting me for drunk and disorderly. I was so Brahms and Liszt I didn’t know I was chewing his thumb.’ She shrugged it off. ‘Anyway, it only took a couple o’ tricks to pay the fine I got.’ On second thought, she shook her head. ‘No, I like a man who can fight back.’
A grin started to curl the corner of her mouth. ‘Mind you, if I’d been sober …’ To illustrate her point, she pushed two fingers forward like a prong up close to his pupils. ‘… I’d’ve given him eye surgery.’
‘Fascinating,’ Noreen mused, her voice dripping with sarcasm.
Big Jess thumbed at Noreen, then turned to Loach. ‘Can she take a hike?’
‘Uh … this is my wife … Noreen.’
‘Oh …’ Big Jess was a bit taken aback. ‘That’s all right then.’ She turned to Noreen with a friendly smile. ‘I’m Big Jess.’
Noreen was about to make another comment, but Big Jess had already returned her attention to Loach. ‘No … reason I’m here is I need a favour from you.’
If possible, Loach became even more uncomfortable. ‘A favour? From me?’
Big Jess was rubbing her jaw, as if contemplating theoretical physics. ‘I think you owe me one …’ Then she deflected the focus away from herself. ‘It’s not for meself. Understand? It’s for Jackie.’ She took Noreen into her confidence. ‘She’s on the game like me,’ she winked. ‘Know what I mean?’
Rather than explain, she bawled in the basic direction of the door. ‘Jackie? Get in here.’
Through the door edged a slim woman with a fragile prettiness and pale complexion. She was probably a great success in her field but right now Jackie was evidently one very scared prostitute. Protectively, Big Jess settled her in the chair beside Loach’s desk.
‘You sit there, luv … Just explain it like I said.’
Big Jess assumed a mountainous position behind her. Conscious of the looming presence of the Amazon to her rear, as well as the complete strangers in front of her, Jackie spoke up hesitantly.
‘I’ve got to get a message to somebody … And I can’t do it myself.’
‘Too bloody true,’ Big Jess confirmed, encouraging her to continue.
‘And Jess said you could help me. It’s a Detective Inspector …’
‘Dutrow. That’s ’is name,’ Big Jess offered, trying to be helpful.
‘Jess said you could get a message to him for me …’
‘Sure,’ Loach agreed, picking up the telephone on his desk. ‘What’s his number? I’ll get him, and you can speak to him.’
A solid lump of meat, familiar to Loach as Big Jess’s right hand, firmly pressed Loach’s hand – clutching, then releasing the ’phone back down.
‘Wait,’ suggested Big Jess. ‘Listen to her.’ Loach was inclined to comply with this request.
Looking down and wringing her hands, Jackie struggled to find the right words. ‘You see, I’ve been of some help in the past …’
‘She’s a Police Informer,’ Big Jess said simply.
‘Je-ss!’ Jackie pleaded with her to be more discreet.
‘Well, it’s right, innit? It’s not your fault you put your leg over the wrong bloke, Jackie.’
The hostile looks they exchanged spoke volumes.
‘Trouble is,’ Jackie confided, ‘I’ve found out there’s some scumbag in Dutrow’s division selling information to Diesel …’
Big Jess stepped in once more to expand and elucidate. ‘A real nasty turd, is Diesel. He’s a pimp who’s inna everything – drugs … you name it. Fancies Jackie rotten …’
That provoked a sharp response from Jackie. ‘Oh yeah, he fancies me. With a razor in one hand and you know what in the other. He fancies me all right.’
Out of the corner of his eye, Loach noticed Noreen both fascinated and cringing at the same time.
Big Jess picked up the loose ends of the story. ‘She wants out, but she’s got something heavy on Diesel that Dutrow’ll pay a lot to get.’
Jackie squirmed in her chair, apparently with some concerns regarding the policy being unveiled and interpreted by Big Jess, who sensed her discomfort and tried to bolster her self-assurance.
‘Well … it’s only right you get some big ones in your bin. The Police has got enough freebies out of you, gal, as it is.’
Loach was still trying to make some basic sense of it all. ‘Are you saying there’s somebody at Dutrow’s division who’s passing on Police information … taking money from this … Diesel? And that’s why you can’t approach Dutrow direct?’ The plausibility of her story was hard to swallow.
But Big Jess had no doubts whatsoever. ‘That’s it. Right on the money. Figure it for yourself,’ she challenged him. ‘Wouldn’t she look a real tart standing outside a police station?’
‘I can risk anything,’ Jackie warned vehemently. ‘If Diesel got a sniff of it …’ She shivered at the thought. ‘No. I want out.’ She looked up to Loach. ‘And I want Dutrow to see me at the usual time tonight. Awright?’
Loach’s eyes connected with hers. ‘I can try. But why come to me?’
Again Big Jess answered for her. ‘Because I told her you was straight. And that you’re not a real policeman …’
Involuntarily Loach winced, and Big Jess must have noticed.
‘… Well, you are a policeman, but you’re more like us, if you see what I mean.’ This time Noreen winced. ‘And you can talk to them more than we can …’ That didn’t help much either.
‘Anyway, I couldn’t think of anyone else.’ Aha, the real reason. ‘And Jackie can’t chance it on the ’phone, cos she don’t know who the motor-mouth is down there, or anywhere else come to think of it.’ She paused to collect her thoughts, such as they were. ‘You get hold of Dutrow, personal-like, and give him Jackie’s message. Right?’
A sudden rat-a-tat on the door interrupted and startled them. All heads instantly swivelled toward the ominous sound. Then weird, alternating, high-pitched voices spoke through the crack in the door.
‘Knock, knock. Who’s there? Foxy.’
A ridiculous puppet poked its head around the opening door, obviously soon to be followed by Freddy Calder.
‘Foxy who?’
The rest of Freddy popped into the office singing the punchline. ‘Fox ’e’s a jolly good fella …’ He laughed at his own joke. ‘It’s me, folks!’ Then he saw the visitors, and stepped back in embarrassment and wonder. ‘Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t know you had …’
Not giving him a second to finish his apology, Big Jess bounced up, pulling Jackie to her feet as well. ‘That’s all right. We was just going.’ As they crossed to the door, Big Jess stopped to tickle Foxy under the chin (or finger, as it were).
‘He’s a real sexpot, innee?’
Gratefully Freddy let them pass, but