Chapter 19
It was a good turnout. He hadn’t seen the place so full for a while. Occasionally nodding to past acquaintances, he stood waiting for Harry to come back from the bar. Eventually, he did.
“There you go, Thurstan.” He handed him a pint of Guinness.
“Thanks, Harry,” he smiled. “So, congratulations. You made it. Here’s to your retirement.” They raised their glasses.
“Come on, let’s sit over there and have a good chat.” He pointed to the table in the corner.
As they sat down Harry grinned. “So, you’re seeing young Lizzie Johnson, I hear. She was on one of my sections. Good lass. What’s she up to these days?”
Thurstan blushed. “Yeah, she told me. She’s with the Financial Investigation Unit but she’s just finishing a residential course down south, so we’ve only seen each other at the weekends recently.” He sipped his beer. “I didn’t know our relationship was common knowledge, Harry?”
“It’s not. I just happen to know the right people.” He smiled benevolently.
A change of subject was needed. “So, Harry, are you going to miss it? The Job?”
Harry put his glass down. “I’ve had a few drinks but it isn’t the ale talking. The straight answer is, no. I’ll miss some of the people, not all, but I won’t miss the Job. It’s not the same, Thurstan. We used to go out and catch criminals and the doers of bad deeds, virtually unhindered. Now, it’s all about duty of care, political correctness and being nice to the bucks. Criminals have never loved the Police. They’re not supposed to. In places like this, people have to be careful not to attract unwanted attention by being overly, outwardly, friendly. Not a problem for me because all we needed, to know we were appreciated, was a surreptitious smile or nod. Now, it’s almost as if we’re craving to be loved. Admittedly, we had more bobbies on a shift then as well. Remember when there’d be at least ten parading for nights?” Thurstan nodded.
“Not now. Last year, I had a bobby transfer from GMP. Three months he was on my shift. I never saw him! The shift pattern’s crazy! I only found out he’d got fed up and transferred back after he’d gone. I was still writing him little notes trying to arrange a meeting!”
A thin smile. Thurstan had heard similar tales.
“Do you remember when some thick sod in the wilds of Derbyshire, or somewhere like that, got ambushed by the Inspectorate and asked what his mission was.” Harry laughed.
“He hadn’t a clue! If they’d used a word he’d heard before it might have all been different. He’d have probably rattled off: ‘The protection of life and property, the prevention and detection of crime and the prosecution of offenders,’ without blinking an eye.
“Instead, we suffered several years of Chief Inspectors and Superintendents ambushing us in corridors, demanding we recite, verbatim, various mission statements. They always seemed to be the bloody same to me, just some clever fuckers had rearranged all the words.
“Then there was the time the Inspectorate decided the Police weren’t very efficient and should start coming up with more pre-planned operations. Did we? Nah! We just decided to make it look as if we were by adding the word ‘Operation’ in front of everything.
“And don’t mention the charts.” He shook his head, chuckling. “Pie charts, line charts, column charts. There was a pie chart for everything. I couldn’t understand most of them and I don’t think they did either. An Inspector grabbed me one day and told me I had to come up with a new operation, based on his pie charts.” He took a mouthful of ale.
“Well, I looked through the door of the parade room at the Ops board. The bastards on the other blocks had already laid claim to everything, so I was fucked.
“I told him I was too busy running the Section. Do you know what his answer was?” Harry wasn’t interested in a reply. “If I was too busy I should give him a list of all the things I was too busy with. I asked him if he was hearing impaired. It didn’t go down well. I don’t know who’d lost the plot more, me or him.”
“Why didn’t you ever go for promotion Harry? You might have been able to change things.”
A mock scathing look and a guffaw. “Did you ever manage to change things? No, I thought not. The ‘forces of darkness’ are too great.” Another mouthful of beer.
“To answer the question, I did try for promotion, a few times, but it felt like I was the only one in the room speaking Portuguese, so I gave up. Anyway, I knew I had no chance after I upset that Chief Super from HQ. The conversation went downhill as soon as I got in his office.”
“How was that?”
Harry laughed. “He told me I was argumentative and I said I wasn’t. What was I supposed to say?” He stood up.
“Listen, just seen Ted McDougall come in. I’ll have to go and get him a drink. I promised to buy him a pint in nineteen eighty-six and never got round to it.”