Specials: Based on the BBC TV Drama Series: The complete novels in one volume
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Created, written and produced by
BRIAN DEGAS
&
HARRY ROBERTSON
Copyright
COLLINS CRIME CLUB
an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk
Specials: Have a Nice Parade and Specials: Ask ’Em, Tell ’Em, Lift ’Em
first published in Great Britain by Fontana 1991
Specials: Over and Out first published in this volume 2017
Copyright © Brian Degas and Harry Robertson 1991, 2017
Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2017
Brian Degas and Harry Robertson assert the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780008260590
Ebook Edition © November 2017 ISBN: 9780008260606
Version: 2017-09-07
Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Part I: Have a Nice Parade
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Part II: Ask ’em, Tell ’em, Lift ’em
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Part III: Over and Out
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
About the Authors
About the Publisher
I
•••••
1
He barely noticed the car on his tail, holding just behind and to the right, where it shouldn’t be. Yet somehow he could sense the danger lurking over his shoulder.
Unfortunately, as he made his way along the freeway into Birmingham, Special Constable Freddy Calder’s conscious mind was elsewhere. In fact, he was on the car-phone.
‘Hi, John. Look here, I’ll be with you in …’
Raising his wrist with a snap, almost a salute, Freddy checked his Rolex – actually, an imitation Rolex, but at a quick glance no one was ever the wiser.
‘… twenty minutes. And, old chum, what I have to show you is sensational.’
His gaze momentarily shifted to the sample case lying on the passenger seat, open just enough to offer a tantalizing glimpse of lingerie, a pair of sheer lace panties to be exact. Freddy’s talent was to imagine just how they would look on virtually anyone he knew, or thought he knew, or even conceived in his waking dreams of knowing. Of course, lying on the back seat was his model, ‘Salvador Dolly’, a curvaceous cut-out figure of an ideal woman wearing only her underwear every hour of the day.
‘Listen, this latest stuff’s so light you better hold on tight to your secretary when she wears them.’
They shared a low, lascivious laugh reserved for men talking about women. Whenever he sensed a customer had the same thoughts in mind, Freddy would start counting his money.
Accidentally and simultaneously, his car veered into the right lane, although he made a swift correction in steering with a slight move of his finger. It was then that he noticed the car on his tail: a maroon Audi, a ‘mean machine’. Suddenly he was alert, but gave no outward or visible sign of alarm.
‘Well, ’course in that case she’s travelling as light as she can get. Yeah. Fantasy Island … Don’t we all! See you.’
Before he could put away the car-phone and look back to his wing mirror, he heard a Luftwaffe motor roaring behind him. Getting louder, the Audi pulled in parallel with him, then swerved toward him and back, as if testing his mettle, before finally surging ahead full throttle.
Freddy cursed. The fool in the mean machine didn’t realize whom he was fooling with. Never cross Freddy Calder.
The chase was on. Guarding his intent – Freddy didn’t want the fool to know it yet – he tucked his blue Sierra neatly in behind the Audi and started a little tailing of his own. His Sierra provided the ultimate camouflage: not new, perhaps, but trim, tidy, respectable, bright as a button, polished by a lingerie salesman’s loving hands and totally inconspicuous in ordinary traffic.
Freddy reached for the car-phone and punched the number for Divisional Headquarters ‘S’ while keeping his aim fixed on the Audi ahead. Moment by moment, the solitary suspect appeared to be accelerating, forcing the pace, maybe trying to shake his tail.
Nevertheless Freddy Calder was on the case. His mood had changed with his identity: now he was a secret agent of the law – a Special – trailing someone in a hurry.
‘Put me through to Sheila Baxter in Control, would you, Bill? Yeah, it’s Freddy Calder here.’
There was no reason to assume that the response would be immediate, efficient or professionally respectful. Nor was it.
‘Fred-dy Cal-der … Sure I’ll hold, but this is important.’
Damn the bureaucratic mind. It was this kind of red tape, he reflected, that had delayed Napoleon’s conquest of Russia, which would have been better for everyone concerned, as history had demonstrated …
Meanwhile, the Sirens were beckoning Odysseus, not only from his sample case stuffed with intimate and racy unmentionables but also from his anticipation of official sirens heralding the imminent arrival of the everyday police. And what would they think of Dolly?
Should he cover them in some way? Hide them? Absolutely not, for that was the secret of his disguise: a ‘Special’ in ladies’ underwear. Who would think to look at him? The fool in the Audi wouldn’t know what had hit him until it was too late. Freddy might appear to the casual eye to be pudgy and unimpressive, but underneath was a lion ready to pounce. When fists were flying, Freddy Calder would be the gent you’d want in there as a back-up. Many a fool had learned that lesson the hard way.
Meanwhile, at Division ‘S’ headquarters, WPC Sheila Baxter was manning the control room – and that wasn’t the only contradiction in terms. In truth, the awesome-sounding ‘control room’ constituted four walls, no windows and no room whatsoever to manoeuvre. The sole generous proportion in this room was a desk too large, and the only semblance of control, computer terminals and the usual communication gear.
But it wasn’t home, and that’s what Sheila liked best about the place. She wanted to stay and keep this job, so she had to exercise a Job-like patience with some of the Specials.
‘Freddy Calder, how many times do I have to tell you? Don’t call on this line.’
In an attempt to win her sympathy, he told her that he ‘couldn’t get through by the proper channels,’ and he had a hot item that couldn’t wait.
‘What? What car? Listen, Freddy, unless it’s dropping gold bricks I’m not interested … Well, for one thing, you’re not on duty. For another, I’m not supposed to give that kind of information to a Special. You know that.’
Perhaps he did, yet what difference should that make now, when pursuit was in progress through traffic becoming thicker as the city grew closer?
‘Sheila, believe me. I got a tingle in my nose about this one. The number is … Ready?’
WPC Baxter grabbed her notebook. ‘Just a second, give me that again.’
While entering the numbers into the computer terminal, she failed to observe the entering of Darth Vader – Police Sergeant Andy McAllister – behind her, looming above like a misery-seeking missile. Just as she realized his sinister presence, she also discovered something of an obstacle on the computer screen.
‘Freddy! Blow your nose. You’re tailing an unmarked police car, you wally!’
With that little piece of information, Freddy squeezed down on the brake and slowed considerably, while the idiot woman driver behind him pulled out and around with a screaming blast of the horn, although he and his brave Cortina did manage to escape intact.
Suddenly there was another vicious burst of noise from the car-phone Freddy was just putting to his ear.
‘Calder! This is Sergeant McAllister.’
Trying to keep his grip, McAllister held the phone – which he had abruptly acquired from WPC Baxter at the instant he resumed command – like a club.
‘Calder, you may think you’re a bloody Miami Vice, but I’ve news for you. You’re a Special, and that puts you lower than the lowest PC still in his nappies. And right now you’re a damned nuisance. In future, leave highway duty to those who know what they’re doing.’
The line went dead, and Freddy blinked hard. That’s the thanks you get for risking your life, he thought to himself, still unable to calm his trembling fingers … and as a volunteer yet! Bunch of bloody desk jockeys.
‘Damned Hobby Bobby!’ McAllister muttered at no one in particular, although scared rabbit Baxter was at least ostensibly paying attention to his every word.
‘Pretend police, who don’t take their function at all seriously … who sell brassieres! This is no place for a clown.’
As far as McAllister was concerned it was enough to bring the entire Specials programme into question.
‘Who’s his senior Special?’
‘His SDO is Barker …’ replied Baxter.
An easy name for her to remember, McAllister mused.
‘… but he’s not been putting in much of an appearance lately, and things are being handled by the section officer, Bob Loach.’
I must have a quiet chat with Loach then, thought McAllister with a smile.
2
Cougar Coaches was busy in the late afternoon, hosting the methodical movement of vehicles being driven in and out of the garage. Prominently parked in the yard area reserved for the staff were the infamous Loach-mobiles, Bob’s white Jag next to Noreen’s Renault 25: hardly a matched pair.
Inside the garage were several buses of varying size and capacity, a few still waiting for repair or some adjustment: the mechanics were clocking off for the day. Unable to stop fussing over a particularly stubborn exhaust-system problem grounding one of the coaches for the last couple of days, works foreman John Barraclough was finishing the job himself. He had advised the frustrated young mechanic he could push off home after informing at least one of the Loaches as to the current status of and prognosis for the obstinate exhaust system.
In one corner of the garage, in the office constructed of white-painted breeze blocks, Noreen Loach was feeling trapped while trying to get somewhere: trying to leave a bit early so she could get to her appointment at the beauty parlour. There was always too much ‘getting’ to do.
She had tidied her desk until it was a model of efficient organization, and made her final tour of the kitchen, wash-up and lavatory in the annexe. Now all that remained to obstruct her was her husband, as usual.
‘I’m off, then. I’ll tidy up the Edinburgh entries tomorrow. It looks as though we did well on that one.’ – While she practised her nonchalant tone of voice at every opportunity, in her own mind she realized full well that it convinced nobody, again with the possible exception of her husband, the one hope she clung to in the present circumstances.
‘Oh aye.’
Another response typical of his ever-so-revealing remarks, she reminded herself.
‘Yes. Anyway, I’m late for my appointment.’ Before he could interrupt, she kept right on going, moving to the door one step at a time. ‘Can I trust you to call them up and say I’m on my way?’
‘Call who?’
Whatever her wishful thinking about making a quick exit, two words from him could dash such notions in an instant.
‘Judy’s Beauty Salon. And no cracks, Loach. I don’t have time for cracks.’
‘I was only going to ask, Noreen, how long you’d be there.’
Immediately she was defensive. ‘What for? I don’t have time to bother about your tea, if that’s what you’re asking.’
Obviously that was not what he was asking. What was she keeping to herself this time, he wondered.
‘I can grab a sandwich. It won’t be the first time.’
Apparently his gesture of self-sufficiency had tipped her over the edge.
‘I’m off,’ she shrugged, swinging her leather bag over her shoulder in a huff and throwing him a warning glance. ‘I can’t stand it when you use that little-boy-lost voice.’
After waiting another few moments to assure himself she was definitely gone, he lifted himself from the chair, straightened his shoulders and assumed an altogether different frame of mind on his way to the back room.
When he emerged with his freshly cleaned and pressed uniform, he was a new man. Carefully he stripped away the long plastic dry-cleaner bag, and there it was: the armour of a peaceful people, a dignified suit of mere cloth, yet signifying to every citizen of the realm that this man, Robert Loach, was a Special, section-officer grade.
Inhaling a deep breath to expand his chest, he held the smart uniform up against himself as a mannequin, looked in the tiny wall mirror Noreen used to patch up her powder and picked imaginary specks of foreign matter and even a few filaments of nearly invisible dust already beginning to float on to the stiff collar.
That was when the door behind him opened, the moment Noreen had chosen for her curtain call.
‘Forgot my keys.’
With as much diplomacy, aplomb and deception as he could muster at this moment, he backed away from the mirror as inconspicuously as possible while swiftly shifting his scrutiny to the illusory minutiae on the collar of his uniform.
Noreen went straight to her desk to fetch the keys, without taking much notice of her husband caught preening himself in her mirror.
‘Did you make the call?’
‘I will. Give me a chance.’
‘I did that once and ended up marrying you.’
‘Very funny,’ he said.
On her way out again, she almost bumped into John Barraclough on his way in, holding up his oily black hands in front of her face, thus barring her path with a crude display of the vulgar side of his occupation. As she always remembered at such inopportune incidents, it was also her husband’s calling.
‘I’m sorry, Mrs Loach. Didn’t like knocking on the door. Not with these.’
To impress his blunt point upon her even further, Barraclough extended his hands closer to her eyes so that she might focus on the grease slicking down the hair on his knuckles.
‘That’s all right. See you tomorrow, Mr Barraclough.’
He nodded politely, still with his dripping hands held up to his face. She managed what she hoped would pass for a tolerant smile and closed the door behind her.
Barraclough walked over to Bob Loach, keeping his hands away from the uniform and away from anything else wherever possible. With an eyebrow instead of words, Loach asked him what he wanted.
‘Sorry ’bout this, Mr Loach, but could you have a look at the Daf?’
‘Can’t it wait, John? I’m …’
He tried to indicate what he meant to say by showing his uniform, almost like a grandparent cradling a new baby.
‘… all set, you see.’
John’s response was also wordless, but Loach could easily discern the meaning from his anxious face.
‘All right, let’s see it.’
Gently putting his uniform aside, Loach retrieved and pulled on a pair of overalls. There was no loss of pride and self-respect when he switched uniforms, at least that’s what he kept telling himself.
While lying on his back on a pallet under the Daf coach in the garage, Loach could hear the BMW of his partner, Dicky Padgett, howl into the yard and squeak to a halt just in time to avoid crashing into the garage itself. Sure enough, nary half a minute passed before Dicky’s polished Italian shoe was tapping the sole of Loach’s boot, which, unfortunately, was sticking out from under the coach.