The mob gave him a sing-song reply: ‘Two, four, six, eight – why should we co-operate?’
One of the thugs snatched Redwood’s cap and hurled it like a frisbee the length of the bus. ‘A hundred and eighty!’ he boasted.
‘Come on, now,’ Redwood endeavoured to caution them. ‘Let’s be sensible …’
But the mood on board the bus was getting angrier and uglier, more disorderly by the second. Some of the mob were crowding around Redwood, surrounding him, pushing and shoving every which way.
Just when it seemed as if he might be swamped, a loud voice shouted from the back of the bus. ‘No, no, no! Hold it!’
Everyone stopped wrestling, and hostilities vanished in an instant.
The irritated voice belonged to Sergeant Crombie, who had been observing the drill from the back seat of the stationary bus at Tally-Ho, the Police Training Centre where Specials and police alike are trained. The hooligans were not supporters of the Birmingham City Football Club or the West Bromwich Albion Football Club or the Aston Villa Football Club or any other for that matter. They were simply off-duty policemen thoroughly enjoying the academic discipline of teaching new Specials the ropes.
Sergeant Crombie was a large, imposing figure whose aggressiveness seemed heightened, if possible, by the brevity of his hair. His iron stare had already singled out Redwood for a dressing-down, and the others moved away from the eye of the storm.
‘Who’s the ringleader? Him?’ Sergeant Crombie badgered Redwood, pointing to one of the pseudo-thugs. Redwood nodded, which only seemed to aggravate the tough sergeant. ‘Then collar him! Be physical! Or you’re the one to go outa here feet first. These are militant drunken louts looking for trouble. The fact that they’re off-duty policemen having a lark for your sakes is neither here nor there. You’re not here to play games. Get stuck in!’
Meanwhile, the mob surrounding them had dropped all pretence of aggression. Newspapers magically appeared, now being read by the former hooligans lolling in their seats. The woman Special had been restored to her feet. Someone tossed Redwood his cap.
Unable to ignore his education as a solicitor, however, Redwood was not entirely satisfied with the methods he was being taught, a few knotty questions still lingering in his mind.
‘Shouldn’t we first establish … uh … ascertain who’s responsible? We don’t know who’s guilty and who’s innocent.’
Sergeant Crombie did not seem overly concerned with the finer points of the law at a moment when mob violence could be imminent. ‘Ascertain? You’ve already ascertained, and you’ll get a broken bonce if you ascertain any more. Maybe I should remind you … uh …?’ He was searching for the name.
‘John Redwood.’
‘Special Constable Redwood … of what goes on in the real world.’ As Sergeant Crombie held up and counted his stubby fingers, many of the off-duty police veterans in the mob joined him in reciting the code of the west.
‘Ask ’em … tell ’em … lift ’em.’
Sergeant Crombie turned and addressed the chanting mob sweetly. ‘With your permission, gentlemen …’ Then he turned on Redwood, and the hard edge returned to his voice.
‘Now let’s get at ’em, shall we?’
That attitude, John Redwood contemplated and remembered, personified the tone and spirit that pervaded the entire training regimen prescribed for the recruited civilians who volunteered to serve as Specials. They weren’t given any special treatment, at least in the sense of mollycoddling. Yet they were given very special treatment in being afforded the same training opportunities as the PCs: what the police constables had to do, the Specials had to do.
Redwood specifically remembered the hardships of strenuous physical conditioning. Not that he was in such bad shape, but he felt all of his 42 years after several laps around the grassy perimeter of the running track. He recalled the camaraderie among these volunteers, when one of them had faltered on the track and others had given him a helping hand and encouraging words to keep going; and when the same had nearly happened to him, as he was winded and barely ploughing along under the stress: the encouragement had been for him that time. As a private, reticent, even shy man, to whom social relations and friendship had never come easily, he was getting something more out of this experience than he had expected, and it was making a deep and lasting impression on him.
Certainly he was learning skills he had never expected to acquire or need in his profession, such as how to apprehend a hostile suspect, or how to disarm a potential attacker. For a time he had been confused about such technical issues as whether his adversary’s arm should be bent up in front of or behind the body. Once he had stepped forward to face the instructor, confidently ready to spring into action and demonstrate the manoeuvre he had been shown, only to be sent flying effortlessly by the instructor.
All this in preparing for the worst, as Sergeant Crombie constantly reminded them. ‘Just because you’ve been vetted by the police, in your homes and workplaces, doesn’t mean you’re fit to undertake the duties and responsibilities of being a Special Constable,’ he had said, simultaneously warning them about and explaining the rationale for the extensive training, mental as well as physical. ‘You’ll learn what it’s like out there on the streets. And we’ll learn whether you’re competent to wear the uniform. Because you’re there to assist the police, in the full knowledge that you’re under their command, control and discipline at all times.’
Those were the kinds of ideas Redwood could respect, and wanted to hear. At least that’s what he had thought prior to one particular afternoon when he and several other Specials were in a classroom with Sergeant Crombie. On the blackboard behind him were some of the buzz-words relating to the Specials under the heading: Duties and Responsibilities. Below that were the words Code of Practice, and under that, indented to the right, each on a separate line, such phrases as Stop and Search, Obstruction, Restraint, Intimidation. Sergeant Crombie had referred to them by pointing his thumb at the blackboard over his shoulder.
‘Okay, that’s the theory,’ he had said. ‘But out on the street nobody’s gonna make any allowances because you’re a Special. The fuzz is the fuzz … even though you don’t get paid for it.’
A cheeky-faced young woman held up her hand, and Crombie had nodded for her to proceed. ‘Sir? I thought we got a quid a year?’
Although her observation tickled the Specials in the classroom, Sergeant Crombie appeared soured by her notion. ‘I’ve always thought that too generous.’ Polite laughter greeted his rejoinder.
‘But you’d better be damned sure you know why you’ve signed up to be a Special.’ At once, Redwood had never seen him more serious (though Crombie was a teacher who never even smiled). ‘And, of course, all of you sitting there think you know.’ Before they had a chance to think about it, he pounced. ‘Hands up, the ones who want to help society … clean up the streets … save the delinquent …?’
One of every pair of hands was raised high in the air, including Redwood’s.
The singular motivation for his wanting to become a Special was a painful memory. It was over a year ago, two years after his wife, Anthea, had died of a cerebral haemorrhage at the age of 36. At the time he had thought her death – so swift, so harsh – was the worst moment of his life. But then their son Simon, their only child, just 16, had been mugged. Pursued by a gang of young thugs, trapped on a pedestrian bridge over an inner city freeway, Simon had fallen from the walkway. His back had been broken, he’d suffered severe head injuries, it was touch-and-go whether he would survive. As a father called by police to identify the shattered body in the hospital bed, his first feeling had been pure hatred, a raging fury that God had singled him out again. He would have turned his back on life had his son died that night.
Confined to a wheelchair, Simon continued to suffer from the after-effects, emotional