Nothing had been said, but he sensed that for some of them this would be the last outing. He and his contemporaries were all past sixty, and the colonel himself was closer to seventy. They didn’t have the stamina for these road trips any longer. Let’s face it, he had told himself, too often, they were all fucked. He could count on at least three nocturnal pisses, uncomfortable ones at that. It was a grievous curse for a man of his passions and he suspected that a few of his friends were afflicted in the same way.
He felt the pressure again as he walked away from the bus, two fresh packs of cigarettes tucked away in his pocket. His first port of call back in the club had better be the lavatory rather than the bar. It had been a good night though. They had been welcomed by their hosts in Hull as comrades in arms, as he supposed they were in a way, ex-servicemen all, linked by a martial bond that was international.
They had marched and played their way through the town centre that afternoon, and he could say with some pride they hadn’t been too damned bad at all. If it was to be a swansong, then it would be sweet and no mistake. It had taken him a while to summon up enthusiasm for the trip, but now that it was under way he was looking forward to every moment of it.
Of course, it was the beer that had lifted up his heart, the true love of his bachelor life, and the common passion that united the ordinary Belgian and his English counterpart. It was a symbol of their nationalism, a thread in each country’s flag, even if it was expressed in very different ways.
The bandsman believed in embracing the culture of others wherever he went, and so he took readily to the strange, warm, hoppy English ale, even though it was as different as one could imagine from the golden Stella or from the strange fruit-based brews of which Belgium was so proud. Beer was the champagne of the common man and much more interesting in its variety and in the range of experiences it offered. For him, England meant the premier cru, the pinnacle of the craft.
That night he was in heaven. The Humberside Ex-servicemen’s Association had taken the Bastogne Drummers to their club, and there they had seen, bright fonts gleaming along the bar, the legend of legends, the range of champion ales made by Timothy Taylor of Keighley, Yorkshire.
He smiled as he thought of his evening. He had heard of Taylor’s ales, of course. . who hadn’t?. . but they were as rare as hen’s teeth, other than the bottled Landlord which he had found once in Antwerp. He had never seen the full range of draught before, and he had set about them with the relish and enthusiasm of a youth.
He had sampled the best bitter, then the draught Landlord and the dark mild, followed by the Golden Best, an extraordinary creation that looked like Stella but tasted like holy nectar. And there was more to come. He had still to reach the mighty Ram Tam and the Porter, which, he had been promised by the comrade with whom he was billeted for the night, made Guinness taste like French tap-water.
But first, it was necessary to make room. The lights of the club shone bright on the other side of the silent roadway as he stepped out of the coach park. He looked at the Taylor’s sign above the entrance, trying to imprint it strongly enough on his memory for it to survive the evening, no matter how many more times he went to the well.
The noise of the vehicle did not register in his brain until it was far too late. When it did, he was in the middle of the road. Finally the roaring of the engine broke through his reverie and drew his eyes to his left. All that he saw was a dark shape, unlit, a big, high, thick-wheeled monster.
He had no time to run, no time even to freeze; it took him in mid-stride. Bull-bars shattered his legs, and the hard edge of the hood smashed through to his backbone, powdering vertebrae and severing his spinal column.
The veteran drummer was hurled high in the air and over the vehicle as it sped on. As he crashed head first on to the hard road, his last thoughts were of Timothy Taylor, of Keighley, Yorkshire.
In his rear-view mirror, the driver saw him hit the ground, and knew that there was no need to look for reverse gear. Two hundred yards further along the road, he turned left, flicked on his lights and drove away quietly, into the night.
18
Detective Chief Superintendent Dan Pringle knew that something unspoken was hanging in the air; his problems were that he was not entirely sure what it was, and that he did not know when Bob Skinner would give it voice.
It was in the DCC’s manner, and in his eyes. He had seen it before in recent weeks when something had been irritating the Big Man, and on each occasion it had been an advance warning of trouble.
And trouble was something that Pringle did not need; not any more, not at his time of professional life. He had come late to the job of head of CID, towards the end of a career which he thought had culminated in his appointment as a divisional head in Edinburgh, and after he had thought he was being parked in a siding when he was transferred to the Borders post.
He was honest enough to recognise that when he had been recalled from that out-station and named as Andy Martin’s successor, most of his colleagues had been surprised. In truth he had been astonished himself. But Bob Skinner had told him that what he wanted most in the job was a pair of safe hands, and that his were the most experienced and reliable around.
In his first months, he had fancied that there had been resentment at his appointment. Ultimately, though, he had put it down to over-sensitivity on his part, and had become more relaxed. He knew that the only person who had really coveted the job had been Greg Jay, whose command took in the Leith area. The rest were either nearer the door than him, or young in post, like Rose and McGuire, and if he was a stop-gap, well, that did not worry him one bit.
Bob Skinner’s demeanour did, though, as they worked their way through the agenda of targets achieved and investigations in progress. The goals that had been set for the year were stiff. Both men knew that and the head of CID had gone into the meeting pleased with his success rate. The war against illegal drugs was, in fact, a series of battles being fought across Scotland, under the general oversight of the Scottish Drug Enforcement Agency but with the local forces as the shock troops. No chief constable wanted to sit at the foot of the enforcement league table, and significant year-on-year increases in detection were always being sought. Pringle had been told to achieve an increase of twenty per cent on the previous year’s enforcement figure, in terms of dealer convictions. With almost half of the operational year left, he was already at sixteen per cent.
‘That’s good, Dan; very good,’ Skinner conceded. ‘Bringing Mary Chambers across from Strathclyde was a nice bit of poaching on Willie Haggerty’s part, and it’s paying off.’
‘Aye, but now I’m losing her to Division,’ Pringle felt compelled to point out, ‘and you still haven’t agreed to her replacement.’
The DCC nodded. ‘I’m aware of that, but I’ve been keeping it up my sleeve until I had it confirmed. We’re going back to Strathclyde to fill Mary’s job in the Drugs Squad. I’m bringing in DI David Mackenzie from North Lanarkshire CID, on promotion to chief inspector; “Bandit”, they call him over there. He is too, a cocky bastard, but he’s a bloody good copper.’
‘Why are they letting him go, then?’
Skinner looked at him severely. ‘Because I asked for him, Daniel.’ Then a half-smile crossed his face. ‘I did a bit of trading though. You know Ian Pitkeathley, the DI from Mary’s team? He’s marrying a girl who’s in a promoted teaching position in Glasgow. It’s easier for him to move job than her, so that’s what’ll happen. He goes to Cumbernauld as a straight replacement. I want you to keep an eye on the Bandit when he gets here. Take him round the divisions, make sure that everyone knows who he is, and that they know whose appointment he is too. His job’s too important for him to be hampered by any petty jealousy.’