It was back in the heady days of his youth that Mark Fletcher, billeted in the single men’s quarters of a Southwark section house, began to get the feeling that a bright young man could make a name for himself in London’s Metropolitan Police Force. The old adage “in the country of the blind the one-eyed man is king” seemed more and more appropriate as he assuaged his sexual appetite on an ample diet of nurses and manoeuvred himself into the CID. It was a time of plenty, a time of golden opportunity, and for Fletcher, breathing the sweet clean air of ambition, promotion to Detective Sergeant in record time seemed a natural reward for his talents.
Within a month he had engineered himself a transfer into the freewheeling Peckham robbery squad, had moved into a stylish bachelor pad and was driving a sports car. His star was well and truly in the ascendant. The squad appealed to his vanity: the swashbuckling image of the elite crime fighter, the absence of regimented routine. He began to affect sharp suits, and allowed his hair to grow longer than regulations permitted. Brash, flashy, aggressive and conceited, that was the veneer, and it gave him a glow of satisfaction, when he walked into a bar for a quiet drink, that a proportion of the patrons would slink away in the direction of the rear exit. In his own impressionable eyes, Mark Fletcher was a “bloody good D” who put the fear of God into the criminal fraternity. So when a policewoman named Helen Ritchie joined the squad for a plainclothes attachment, it seemed only natural in the incestuous world of “the job” that an affair was on the cards.
Helen Ritchie was a doll, no two ways about it, and plainly she had been selected for CID because she bore not the slightest resemblance to the archetypal policewoman. She was petite, fine-featured, with a model’s figure and a natural walk with pelvis thrust forward which brought a chorus of wolf whistles from building sites. She wore her coppery hair in a mass of finger curls, like a burnished halo around her elfin face. Her nose wrinkled delightfully when she smiled. Her first day on the squad produced a desperate contest to see who could tempt her out to lunch. DS Mark Fletcher won by a long head. Pretty soon they were seen regularly together, driving out of town in the MX5 for evenings in country inns. After a surfeit of nurses Fletcher was enchanted, felt a fluttering sensation inside himself when they were together, a mild anxiety when they were apart. It was a unique experience. Like the time they lay together on the Habitat settee in his flat, her head cradled against his chest, Ella and Frank duetting on the hi-fi. A wave of romantic imagery suddenly washed over him.
“Helen…”
“Hmm?”
“I love you.”
“Uh-huh.”
“No, I really do.”
“What?”
“Love you.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Come on, I’m serious.”
“All right.” Her eyes were closed as she listened to the music.
After a moment Fletcher said: “Helen, I really love you.”
“Howd’you know?”
“What?”
“How d’you know you love me?”
“It’s how I feel, I just feel it.” Mark Fletcher floundered for the right words.
“How do you feel it?”
“Oh, come on.”
“Mark,” she said, opening her eyes and smiling as she teased him. “What on earth makes you think you love me?”
“I just know it.”
“You think you love me,” she said a little more seriously. “We’d need to know each other a lot better before you’d really know it.”
“Oh, come on, Helen.”
“Believe me, Mark,” she said, really serious now, “you love yourself more than you love me, and when that changes, I’ll know it.”
“That’s a pretty cruel thing to say.”
“There’s no sense in kidding ourselves,” she said, “give it time, don’t rush it.”
“But I love you now.”
Helen closed her eyes again. “Relax, Mark,” she said, “listen to the music.”
Times like this, he thought to himself, she could be infuriating, but he swallowed his injured pride and tried to imagine what it would need to convince her. He had no way of knowing that the convoluted process of female courtship required edging forward slowly, consolidating each move before surrendering further precious resources of emotion. He had no way of knowing that Helen was already enmeshed in the complicated emotional web that he had spun within her. His feelings were still too shallow for that kind of comprehension, and Helen Ritchie, playing the game dictated by her instincts, would never admit it. As if that weren’t enough, sometimes the job intruded.
They were driving home from a restaurant when Helen, who had been in a pensive mood all evening said, “Let’s just park over there, Mark, and talk a minute.”
Fletcher steered the Mazda into a layby and cut the engine. They sat for a moment in absolute silence.
When he could stand the suspense no longer, Fletcher said: “Penny for ’em then?”
Helen, who had been staring out of the window, turned to face him. “How serious is withholding information?”
Fletcher was taken aback. “How d’you mean?”
“In the job.”
“Depends.”
She bit her lip. “I mean, do you switch off when you’re off duty, Mark? Can you have a personal life as well?”
Fletcher smiled. “We’re like the Pinkertons, we never sleep.”
“Mark, I’m serious.”
“Well,” he said, “you know the score as well as I do, Helen, particularly on the squad. A good D’s supposed to put the job first.”
“What about us?”
Fletcher shrugged. “We’ve done all right so far, there’s no regulation says you can’t live your own life.” He felt a sense of foreboding, like stepping on to shifting sands. “You’d better tell me what’s on your mind,” he said finally.
Helen was staring out of the car window again, her face turned away from him. “How important is Bernard Goodman?” she asked softly.
Fletcher jerked upright in his seat. “What d’you know about Bernard Goodman?”
“Only that he’s a squad target.”
“Jesus, Helen, that’s the understatement of the year. The top brass at the Yard have been busting a gut over him for the past six months or more.”
“Big deal then, eh?”
“Helen,” Fletcher said, “Bernie Goodman and his little team ripped off two mill in bullion and artefacts from the vaults of the Bank of Japan in the Strand. He’s not just a big deal, he’s the Met’s number one most wanted.”
“I’m the new girl,” Helen said, still without looking at him. “Tell me what makes him so special.”
“Look, love,” Fletcher said, “Bernie’s a star villain, best lance man in the business. He went though the vault of that bank like butter and damn near caused an international incident. The Japanese Embassy went ballistic. Went in from an old sewer nobody knew was there, clean as a whistle, left us with egg on our face. Vanished into thin air. We never got a sniff on that job.”
“I know where he is,” she murmured.
Fletcher was stunned. “Say that again?”
“Bernard Goodman. I know where he is, Mark.” She turned to face him, her expression sombre.
“Come on…you’re kidding me?”
She shook her head. “I wish I were.”
Fletcher took her hand in his. “Look, Helen,” he said carefully, “this is serious. Are you telling me you know where Bernie Goodman is, right now, this minute?”