CATHERINE
MOLONEY

1

Nothing Doing

 

At roughly the same time as Bridie Mulvaney was heading to her cleaning job and the  horrific discovery at Fitness for All, DI Gilbert (‘Gil’) Markham was sitting in the living room of his apartment at The Sweepstakes, an upmarket complex off Bromgrove Avenue. together with retired DS George Noakes and Olivia Mullen. The latter was an English teacher at Hope Academy (popularly known as ‘Hopeless’) and had been in a relationship with Markham until quite recently when it hit the rocks for various reasons including his workaholic habits. A willowy, ethereal-looking redhead of pre-Raphaelite allure, her delicate beauty was in amusing contrast with Noakes whose beefy, pug-featured appearance – not enhanced by wildly waving salt and pepper hair that stuck up in rumpled prongs – could most kindly be described as “battered”.

  Although now separated, with Olivia renting a flat in Medway not far from Noakes’s office, the former lovers had gradually managed to salvage their friendship and, it seemed to Markham, got on far better than before. ‘We’re almost like brother and sister now,’ she had joked, in which case he hoped privately that there might then be opportunities for incest since he missed the passionate physical connection they had enjoyed. Still, it was early days and he was content to take things slowly, particularly since he had come to believe that Olivia’s inability to have a child lay behind her snip-snapping, biting humour and spikiness. Hers was a brittle, highly burnished carapace which harboured deeply personal darkness – as though something serpentine lay coiled inside her that vented itself in sudden shafts of caustic malice. The whole topic of children was now a no-go area between them, and he was somewhat ashamed at being relieved this was so. He was in no doubt that he still loved her, but knew it was a deeply selfish love.

  The room still bore Olivia’s mark, with ballet prints and figurines that proclaimed her devotion to Dance. Markham supposed he should give it some kind of makeover to symbolize new beginnings, but he liked the red and gold vintage wallpaper together with the thick carpet of the same hue and carefully chosen antiques that evoked the ambience of an old-fashioned gentlemen’s club. As he sat in his favourite wingback armchair next to the French windows with Olivia cross-legged at his feet and Noakes lounging on the overstuffed Chesterfield, he could almost imagine nothing had really changed. The balcony doors were open and a drowsy hum rose up from the tastefully landscaped gardens, inducing a mood of lazy somnolence which no-one seemed inclined to disturb.

  ‘Are we gonna watch the Olympics closing ceremony later?’ Noakes wanted to know. ‘Only, if it’s half as rubbish as the opening one, I don’t think I c’n be bothered…. I mean, all them boats chugging down the river with arty farty crap ’bout Marie Antoinette that no-one understood.’

  Olivia laughed. ‘You’ve got to admit the French didn’t get everything wrong…. Celine Dion wasn’t bad, George.’

  The other looked as though he didn’t care to admit anything of the kind.

  ‘It were bobbins. I’ve had more fun at a bus stop.’

  ‘But you’ve enjoyed this last fortnight,’ she insisted. ‘You’ve been practically glued to the games.’

  ‘Can’t be doing with stuff like synchronized swimming an’ all the weirdy events. Plus, it’s too commercialized …. all about the money and deals…. ’Sides, our lot are always coming in seventh or being “plucky losers”,’ he groused.

  Markham chuckled. ‘Well, the ancient Greeks had no truck with any notion of sport for sport’s sake,’ he said. ‘You either won and got a victory hymn or lost and got consigned to  outer darkness.’

  Noakes assumed a puritanical expression. ‘They competed in the nude an’ all.’

  Uncertain how to respond to this magnificent non-sequitur, Olivia moved to safer ground. ‘The ancient games even went on in time of war…. a way for enemies to meet up and experience some sort of kinship.’

  Noakes, as an alumnus of ‘P’ Company who wore his regimental tie with pride, approved of this. ‘Yeah, like in World War One when our lads played football with the Jerries in no man’s land.’

  Olivia winked at Markham. ‘I imagine it as being more like Glastonbury…. tents in the open, heat and dust, but dodgier loos.’

  As gloom threatened to descend once more, Markham hastily interposed, ‘Apparently, if anyone cheated back then, the organizers made a bronze of them so that their shame was immortalized for ever.’

  His friend’s face cleared. ‘Thass more like it,’ he said. ‘You gotta take a tough line with that sort of thing.’

  Tapping into this positive vein, Olivia said, ‘Everything was tougher in olden times…. In the pankration you could get away with just about anything except gouging out eyes or biting.’ She decided not to mention that grabbing of testicles was permitted.

 ’Wouldn’t have suited Mike Tyson then,’ Noakes guffawed.

  ‘No indeed. But it was incredibly tough,’ Olivia informed him, drawing on a recent school project about the Olympics. ‘The final event involved running in full armour in 38 degree heat.’

  Noakes looked delighted at that. ‘Jus’ imagine,’ he breathed reverentially as the other two exchanged amused glances.

  George Noakes had been Markham’s right-hand man in CID for more years than either of them cared to remember. After retirement, he initially worked as security manager at Rosemount, an upmarket nursing home, before taking the plunge and setting up as a private investigator (Medway Investigations) while simultaneously assisting Markham’s elite unit as a ‘civilian consultant’ (far oftener than the top brass liked). After a slow start, the fledgling business was doing well, but Markham was in no doubt his friend missed pursuing ‘top end scrotes’ as opposed to spying on adulterous couples and the like.

  As the afternoon wore on, talk turned from the Olympics to DCI Sidney (‘Slimy Sid’ to the troops) who had been expected to retire some months previously but was unaccountably still in situ.

  ‘He wants to go out on a high,’ Markham said wryly. ‘Most probably he’s waiting till after the re-opening of the Bromgrove Tunnel and all the civic junkets.’

  ‘That big eyesore,’ Noakes scoffed. ‘Built by Irishmen who came over here, took one look an’ then decided to dig their way back home again. Sorry, no offence, luv,’ he added, belatedly remembering Olivia’s heritage.

  ‘None taken, George,’ she laughed, inspiring him to cast further aspersions at the head of CID. ‘Sidney’s over there on holiday at the moment….. Gallstone Bay or some such.’

  Markham smiled, aware that Harrogate was Noakes’s ultimate holiday spot (or ‘last resort’, depending on how you looked at it). ‘You can abuse Ireland all you like, but don’t  knock Bromgrove,’ he reproved his friend. ‘The guidebooks call it a town of great historical romance.’

  ‘Oh aye, thass cos Cromwell knocked half the churches down an’ it’s where Mrs Byron caught up with Alfie.’

  ‘You’re forgetting all the maritime history,’ Olivia pointed out.

  ‘Maritime!’ Noakes sniffed eloquently. ‘Thanks to the bleeding council, that applies to the streets more’n the river.’ He grinned evilly at their disapproving expressions. ‘There were this story in the Gazette about some cheeky Scouse git who called Bromgrove the “cesspool of England”….. cos they were jus’ passing through, geddit.’

  ‘Hilarious, Markham sighed, reflecting that there was nobody so magnificently confident of his place in Britain and the world as George Noakes, and it was no surprise that DI Chris Carstairs had joked the ex-DS was probably twenty-one before registering that ‘poxy-foreigners’ were in fact two words.

  ‘Cheeky git.’ Now Noakes was smiling indulgently at the memory. ‘Said when a Bromgrove lad dies, he leaves his mother-in-law to the nation.’

  Olivia groaned in mock horror. ’Quite the comic, George.’

  As the other two bickered affectionately, Markham’s thoughts drifted…….

  He could only hope his friend never felt any compulsion to try out such gems on DCI Sidney when the latter returned from holiday. Having fathomed Noakes’s linguistic quirks, an auditor needed to understand the psychological peculiarities of the speaker – otherwise, as Olivia was wont to jest, there was a risk of conversations breaking down into normality. Noakes, for example, would never say, ‘Are you correct about that?’ in approved corporate-speak but instead, ‘Were you born an idiot or did you have to practise?’, a frankness of approach that led to endless run-ins with both his superiors and HR. Markham had enjoyed Noakes’s updated CV with its tongue in cheek reference to ‘educational smile-stones’, but he suspected that when Sidney finally retired it would take every ounce of diplomacy to stop his superiors throwing the legendarily outspoken former sergeant overboard.

  Olivia, on the other hand, delighted in Noakes’s subversive streak, declaring that he was a very parfit Yorkshire knight whose motto was “Yorkshire vincit omnia”, which pronouncement elicited the suspicious query, ‘I s’pose you’re quoting that Chaucer bloke…. who wrote all about them weirdos on that medieval CND march thingy.’

  Mrs Muriel Noakes by no means shared her husband’s fondness for Olivia nor appreciation of her citrus-sharp wit. Indeed, she was privately highly irritated by his almost chivalric devotion to Markham’s ex. She and Noakes had met (incredibly) on the ballroom dancing circuit (he claimed his army square-bashing made him a natural) and, while the dynamics of their marriage were a mystery to Markham, there was no doubting Noakes’s uxoriousness and immense pride in his wife. Snobbish, overbearing and an inveterate social climber, Muriel invariably set Olivia’s teeth on edge, but she did her best to disguise the antipathy she felt out of loyalty to the man who was Markham’s closest friend.

  Natalie Noakes, like her mother, was tepid about Olivia’s charms. The buxom, perma-tanned beautician was Noakes’s “golden girl” (though he was not her biological father), and his pride when she obtained a degree in History from Bromgrove University knew no bounds. After a rocky romantic history, she was now safely married to the proprietor of a local fitness centre (despite the best efforts of his mother who was by no means keen on the brassy interloper).

  Muriel and Natalie had both been apprehensive when Noakes abandoned the manicured delights of Rosemount to set up as a private investigator, but his part-time role as Markham’s ‘civilian consultant’ had reconciled them to the change, likewise the favourable publicity resulting from major solves like the recent case of the Hollingrove Stones which made headlines in the Gazette. Of late, things had been fairly quiet in CID, which suited Noakes just fine since it allowed him to wallow in the wall-to-wall TV coverage of the Olympics. ‘Nothing doing’ was his refrain when asked if there was any major investigation on the horizon.

  Now being well past what he called his ‘scrum-by-date’, Noakes had decided to take up golf, much to Muriel’s delight. She was in the seventh heaven of rapture when Markham, having called in various favours, secured membership for his friend at Medway Golf Club  The DI could only pray that Noakes would behave himself and refrain from outraging sensibilities in the clubhouse.

  Golf and ‘respectable pursuits’ were a lexicon that Muriel understood, whereas her husband’s bolshie delight in subverting cultural norms was as baffling to her as it was a source of endless entertainment to Olivia.

  Despite poetry ‘giving him the hump’, Noakes listened patiently when Olivia ‘started spouting from one of them ornithologies’, confining himself to rude comments about Robert Browning being ‘one of the gravy people’ and an insistence that all the Romantic poets were inveterate junkies, La Bella Donna Sans Merci being exhibit A in the bill of indictment. As far as he was concerned, Don Juan and John Donne – pervert and convert – were entirely interchangeable and when it came to the Metaphysicals, Olivia was finally obliged to admit defeat. Dr Abernathy, Hope Academy’s delightfully eccentric head of English was fascinated by this rough diamond, however, sending everyone into convulsions when he quipped brightly that the infamous Noakesypropisms amounted to ‘the art of using words in a way that was hermeneutically and philologically erronimous’. It’s like when Eric Morecambe told André Previn he was playing all the right notes, just not necessarily in the right order,’ DS Roger Carruthers commented sarcastically. Noakes, needless to say, had no truck with ‘André ‘Preview’ or any such cultural icon, but Carruthers made considerable mischievous capital from the comparison.

  Carruthers – or ‘Roger the Dodger’, as Noakes called him – was the nephew of Superintendent ‘Blithering’ Bretherton and initially treated with cautious reserve by the others lest he should be prone to telling tales out of school. Somewhat sinister in appearance, with slicked back hair, striking pallor and horn-rimmed specs, his disconcerting resemblance to an officer of the SS also acted as a bar to instant intimacy. Over time, however, he had proved his loyalty to Markham and, despite a sticky patch involving leaks to the local press, had proved his worth as a member of the unit.  Like Doyle, he was mad about football and Bromgrove Rovers, a trait which was bound to endear him to the equally passionate Noakes. In no time at all he was calling Noakes ‘sarge’ like the rest, teasing him about his lack of technical skills – ‘once sound-bitten twice sound-shy’ – and revealing a wry sense of humour which delighted in puncturing pomposity and was greatly to the older man’s taste. Perhaps the clincher came when Carruthers described Nietzsche as ‘the bloke who’s mostly famous for being spelt wrong’ in order to get a rise out of po-faced DI Kate Burton. In fact, he and Noakes swiftly formed an alliance against the earnest DI whose seriousness and political correctness made her an ideal target for raillery. On Burton emerging from her lengthy stay at a local convent, to which she had retreated at a time of protracted soul-searching, the gang got together for drinks at their favourite local pub The Grapes. ‘A dose of cascara should sort you out, luv,’ Noakes told her kindly, ignoring her obvious bewilderment as to what lesion, deformity or disease this sovereign remedy might be expected to cure. ‘Religious hang-ups an’ all that,’ he said for the avoidance of doubt. ‘Nowt like a good clear out for sorting the dumps.’ ‘Literally,’ Carruthers muttered sotto voce as their colleague turned scarlet.

  Carruthers and DS Doyle also laughed about Burton’s schoolmarmish tendencies and called her ‘the culture vulture’ behind her back, but at bottom the two young men were genuinely fond of her, even protective. They didn’t remotely understand the spiritual crisis that had precipitated her temporary withdrawal but were glad when she emerged from her chrysallis. They knew she had split from Professor Nathan Finlayson of Bromgrove University’s criminal profiling department (nicknamed ‘Shippers’ by Noakes by virtue of his resemblance to the serial killer Harold Shipman), but only Noakes suspected she had long nursed secret feelings for her boss. Markham guessed that his friend was keen to ascertain whether Burton’s tenderness was in some measure reciprocated or if she had ever received any encouragement, particularly since his breakup with Olivia. By tacit consent, however, they rarely spoke of personal matters, operating at a level of subterranean telepathy which meant that even though Noakes knew Markham was the survivor of childhood abuse (a tragedy he had somehow overcome while his brother Jonathan – long lost to drink, drugs and suicide – had not), next to nothing was said openly between them. It was enough for Markham that Noakes always had his back, and he relished the other’s iconoclastic irreverence for authority together with the humanity that meant his friend was vastly more interested in nabbing ‘scrotes’ and supporting the underdog than making a name for himself. Noakes was aware that his friends had overcome relationship difficulties in the past, most notably when Olivia briefly took up with a deputy head at Hope, and it was clear that he hoped all was not lost. Moreover, since rumour had it one DCI Knevitt from London’s Tower Bridge team was sniffing round Burton, there was additional reason to hope that developments in her personal life would put paid to unfinished business with Markham (not to mention ‘the God stuff’).

  Though poles apart from Noakes in terms of background and outlook, DI Kate Burton shared his fierce loyalty to Markham and unswerving commitment to securing justice for the victims of serious crime. Along with Carruthers, they were also dedicated aficionados of true crime documentaries, although the two men affected to shudder whenever she hauled out her beloved Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders or embarked on a complicated explanation of clinical signifiers.

  The psychology graduate and fast-track detective had suffered a minor breakdown after the death of her father, taking a sabbatical from the job. There had been a period when Markham feared she would never return, but she was back on his squad, albeit with something fragile in her demeanour that made him wonder if it was too much too soon.  

  At least there wasn’t much to worry about when it came to DS Doyle, a lanky easygoing redhead now engaged to his sensible teacher girlfriend Kelly. As she was currently in hospital for some minor procedure, this gave Noakes a perfect excuse to call in on his friend for the odd ‘beerathon’ and earnest analysis of the sporting landscape. Markham would have been glad to know that Noakes was dropping some hints about the advisability of Doyle taking his inspector’s exams, but he suspected the younger man was dragging his heels through fear that this would lead to his being transferred off Markham’s team. No doubt Carruthers’s uncharacteristic diffidence about career progression arose from the same cause. The two sergeants were happy with the status quo, since it allowed them to remain in Markham’s tight little unit (envied by many in CID), and though he felt he should be taking a firmer line with his subordinates about professional development, the DI was privately pleased he could hang on to them for the time being. The chemistry worked and, at a level, the team was the nearest thing he had to family. Of course there would be a battle with Chief Superintendent Ebury-Clarke in due course, but he’d cross that bridge when he came to it.

  Noakes’s relations with CID’s top brass had always been distinctly rocky, inspiring a collective sigh of relief when he finally collected his carriage clock and retired. Markham still broke out in a cold sweat whenever he recalled overhearing Noakes’s conversation with Ebury-Clarke’s retired English teacher wife at his farewell dinner. ‘All my pupils went on to higher things,’ she brayed, to which Noakes (pretty well refreshed) couldn’t help adding, ‘An’ jails’ before asking what it was like teaching English as a second language. ‘For god’s sake, think before you speak, Noakesy,’ Markham pleaded, only to receive the unanswerable riposte, ‘My old gran used to say, “Count to ten,” so I’d do it an’ get to eleven an’ then she’d clobber me!’ Feathers flew when Noakes, egged on by Olivia lampooned the son of Sidney’s PA – a graduate recruit to the force – in a notorious limerick which began:

  Scuffer! Scuffer! On the beat,

  With thy elephantine feet,

  You can’t see the way to go

  Cos yer ’at comes down too low.

It was in vain that Markham explained his friend was trying his hand at parody (William Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Experience, Olivia said trying to keep a straight face). After Noakes’s “ode” mysteriously found its way into CID’s in-house newsletter, relations with Sidney’s office went into the deep freeze for several months…..

  Now, returning to the present, Markham listened indulgently to the others’ banter, his ex delighting the older man with anecdotes from the chalk face. ‘Straight up,’ she laughed about the newly recruited fraulein newly recruited as a German language assistant who was having considerable difficulties with Olivia’s recalcitrant form. ‘She finally had a meltdown and  screamed at them. “You think I know nothing. I tell you I know damn all!’

  Noakes was puce with delight at this, his complexion turning even more florid as she recited her battles over English grammar. ‘I kept trying to get this one lad to stop saying “I seen,”’ she confided. ‘Told him I never wanted to hear him say “seen” again and it should always be “saw”. So then when I said we had to get back to Macbeth  and asked where we were up to, he shouted out, “Act four, saw three.”’

  ‘Reckon you walked right into that one, luv,’ her portly listener sniggered.

  She pulled a face. ‘Reckon I did.’

  Their talk turned once again to a desultory discussion of DCI Sidney (or ‘Judas Iscariot’ as Olivia called him), the two being united in their dislike of the man whose narrow-minded resentment of Markham’s Oxbridge credentials and good looks (‘the Daniel Day-Lewis of CID’ he had been overheard to sneer) – not to mention a tendency to hog the glory whenever the unit had a big win – had made the DI’s job far from easy.

  ‘Sidney’s mellower these days,’ Markham insisted, ‘especially now he and the Valkyrie are back together,’ this being a reference to the DCI’s formidable spouse from whom there had been an acrimonious split.

  ‘Humph.’ Olivia looked far from convinced.

  ‘He reckons TV’ll snap him up for summat,’ Noakes said balefully. ‘Talking head on one of them breakfast programmes…. cosying up to some poor lass an’ honking away in her ear ’bout “hot-button topics”, “maximum cut-through” an’ “intersectionality”’

  Olivia burst out laughing at the pitch-perfect adenoidal mimicry.

  ‘You jus’ wait an’ see,’ Noakes insisted. ‘It’s cringe the way he says “It’s a wrap” every chance he gets.’

  Markham grinned. ‘He may decide to come back and join you as a civilian consultant, Noakesy. Wouldn’t that be cosy.’

  ‘No it bleeding wouldn’t.’ His friend scowled. ‘When I think what I’ve put up with from him over the years.’

  ‘You’ve got a bad case of Italian Alzheimer’s,’ Markham said lightly.

  ‘Whassthat then?’

  ‘They forget everything except grudges.’

  The other’s mouth stretched a little at that, but he wasn’t to be dissuaded. ‘Sidney’s the type to do it just to spite me,’ he grumbled.

  ‘You need to win him around, George,’ Olivia soothed. ‘Keep telling him he’d be a natural on the telly.’

  ‘And try to avoid provoking him,’ Markham advised wryly. ‘As in don’t say stuff like “Those about to die salute you” when we’re waiting outside his office.’

  Olivia giggled. ‘Did George really say that?’

  ‘Yes… and since Sidney’s PA still hasn’t forgiven Noakesy for that limerick, she had no hesitation about landing him in it.’

  Looking guiltily self-conscious at the reference to Noakes’s infamous limerick, Olivia decided it was time to depart.

  ‘Seems like the two of you are getting on okay these days,’ Noakes said wistfully after Markham returned from seeing her off.

  ‘I guess having “consciously uncoupled”, we’re now set to be the best of friends,’ Markham retorted, a certain ironic inflexion warning Noakes that this was dangerous ground.

  In what he doubtless fondly imagined was a change of subject but Markham recognised as part of his secret agenda for bringing them together, the other man said, ‘Your Liv’s done a cracking job helping me jazz up the office.’

  It was certainly true that Olivia had helped to transform Noakes’s quarters over the Tandoori at the entrance to the Medway Centre, his kindly landlord Mr Shah displaying endless patience over the various renovations.

  ‘She found me this great picture of General Custer to go over my desk,’ Noakes continued proudly.

  Markham suppressed a smile at this, since it was one of his friend’s idiosyncrasies when employed at Rosemount to source gung-ho portraits of military types out of a conviction that such icons were bound to cheer the residents and inspire a kind of bulldog spirit. Olivia had originally counselled against adorning his office with the hero of Little Bighorn on the grounds that it might spook potential clients, but Noakes had gradually worn her down and in the end they had settled on something reasonably anodyne and idealised.

  ‘You don’t think Custer’s long hair is a bit unsoldierly?’ Markham teased. ‘I mean it’s quite a different look from Nelson and Captain Cook’ and the rest of Noakes’s pantheon.

  ‘It weren’t vanity or owt like that,’ was the stubborn response. ‘He grew his hair long cos that made it difficult to scalp him, see.’

  Markham doubted that visitors to Medway Investigations would find this particularly reassuring but knew when he was vanquished.

  ‘So, are we gonna watch the closing ceremony then?’

  They had come full circle.

  ‘Not if there’s something better on the box,’ Markham said pacifically.

  ‘I’m feeling kinda peckish…. how about a takeaway?’ Seeing as Muriel was out at some Rotary event, it was clear Noakes felt he was entitled to some quality lads’ time.

  Markham smiled.

  ‘D’you know, Noakesy, when your time’s up and you find yourself standing at the threshold of eternity, I fear the recording angel will rap on the Pearly Gates and announce, “Almighty Father, there’s a seriously greedy character claiming acquaintance.”’

  ‘It’s better’n that godawful tweezer food your Liv an’ Burton go in for,’ was the unruffled reply.

  Before Noakes could embark on a denunciation of vegetarians and reiterate his oft-aired opinion that he’d ‘never met a sane one’, Markham hastily reached for his mobile, reflecting wryly that it wasn’t exactly a testament to his lifestyle that he should have The Lotus Garden on speed dial. Nothing doing just about summed it up.

                                                  ………………………………..

Later that evening, after Noakes had departed, Markham sat in his study which overlooked the neighbouring cemetery, a room as sparse and unadorned as the living room was cosy and cluttered.

  The sultry summer night blanketed all the graves and monuments beyond the picture window – the sculpted cherubs and cypresses with their ornate curlicues – but it made him curiously contented to know those shadowy legions of the dead were close at hand, a reminder that it was down to him to secure justice for all who had been consigned to the hereafter before their time and had no-one to fight for them.

  And now it seemed that a fight of sorts was headed his way.

 Some ten minutes earlier, he had received a telephone call from DI Chris Carstairs who headed the Sexual Offences team….

  It transpired that Carstairs had his hands full, having recently been tasked with setting up a unit to tackle the threat of ‘Alt-Right’ hate crime which appeared to be on the rise in Bromgrove. ‘It’s a right pain in the proverbial, Gil,’ the DI complained. ‘Ebury-Clarke’s after getting brownie points with the CC, so I just have to suck it up.’

  ‘How can I help?’

  ‘There’s a series of unsolved sex attacks you could take on for me…. older women…. looks like there’s a common factor.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘They belonged to something called the “Silverfit Group” which meets at the local gym…. Fitness for All.’

  ‘I’m with you now, Chris. There was a piece in the Gazette the other day…. he drags them into Hollingrove Park and makes them perform sex acts on him….. nasty.’ And, more worryingly, probably the precursor to something far more serious. ‘Three victims to date, right?’

  ‘Yeah, but my gut tells me he’s only just getting started.’

  ‘E mail me the details and I’ll brief my team first thing tomorrow.’

  ‘Cheers, Gil, I owe you.’ There was the hint of a smile in his caller’s voice. ‘Presumably you’ll include  Noakesy, seeing as Sidney’s still off gallivanting in Galway.’

  ‘Correct. It’s dog days right now, so he’ll be glad of the work.’

  ‘What about the others…. are they free?’

  ‘Nothing I can’t untangle,’ came the easy reply. When it came to securing the services of his gang, Markham had a well-known knack for getting his way…..

  Now he reflected with satisfaction that it would be good to get stuck in. Recently he had become something of a desk-jockey, co-ordinating various crime reduction initiatives, and itched to return to the sharp end of policing.

  Beyond the window, the sound of a sudden downpour startled him from his introspection. As coolness crept into the room, he squared his shoulders.

  It was no longer a case of nothing doing. He was back in the saddle once more.