Z Cars Again

by Allan Prior

Genres: Police Procedurals; Traditional Mysteries

Synopsis

Z Victor One takes to the streets once more when a spate of school burglaries attracts the attention of P.C. Jock Weir and P.C Fancy Smith. Based on the classic BBC series, voted one of the 100 Greatest British Television Programmes of the 20th century.

Release date: October 24, 2013

Publisher: Mulholland

Print pages: 128

Sample

‘Z VICTOR ONE. Go to Watson Road, Fairview, reported break-in. See Mr. John Wilson, the aggrieved.’

In the Information Room at County Police Headquarters Katie Reynolds turned her switch from Transmit to Receive, and she yawned. It was three o’clock in the morning. The most exhausting hour of the night. She waited for the patrol cars to reply.

‘Z Victor One. We’re on our way, love.’

Katie logged the time in her book, and smiled to herself. They had sent Fancy Smith on two courses to try to teach him correct R.T. procedure. If he was speaking to a woman, any woman, Fancy called her ‘love’. He simply didn’t know he was doing it. When remonstrated with, he would reply, ‘Well, what’s wrong with that?’

Now, everybody had given up trying.

Katie looked down into the well of the Information Room. The Duty Officer who had just taken the call was dealing with another, one of the fifty 999 calls they would receive on any given night. The red and green lights on the wall map flashed the positions of the various mobile units of the County Force. Among them, moving away from the huge industrial sprawl of the Newtown Estate, was Z Victor One, on its way to work.

Fancy Smith, fourteen stones of bones, muscle and controlled belligerency, was sucking a mint.

‘Put your foot down, Jock. We might catch these fellas on the job; you never know.’

Jock Weir kept his eyes on the Newtown road, spinning past them at eighty miles an hour. ‘A house?’ he said. ‘Well, it’ll be a bit of a change, anyway. Houses seem to have gone out of fashion. We’ve had nothing but schools for about two months.’

Fancy grunted. ‘Aye, they’re making us look proper Charlies, these school merchants. It’d look a bit better if we could catch somebody, and it wouldn’t much matter who it was.’

He looked impatiently out of the window. The rows and rows of slumbering, darkened brick-boxes in which the worthy and (often) unworthy citizens of Newtown lay resting from their labours, if any, were giving way to the mile or two of green fields which separated them from the well-to-do citizens of Fairview.

Fancy mused, thinking that the patrol cars were rarely in Fairview: there wasn’t a lot of point in patrolling an area where the average income was around £5,000 a year. For that matter, Fancy was never particularly happy talking to the well-britched householders of Fairview. They were inclined to think that the police force was working for them. In Newtown, nobody had any such illusion. In Newtown, you knew where you stood.

Fancy liked it better that way.

The speedometer needle touched ninety, but Jock’s face, as usual, was mild and expressionless. Fancy knew Jock as a good oppo and a useful lad in a bundle, but on occasions like this he wished that Jock would sometimes get a little more excited. Still, he was doing ninety. Fancy couldn’t have bettered that himself, not on this road, at this time of night.

The Zephyr tore on into the darkness.

Henry Wilson, the ‘aggrieved’ of Katie’s message to Z Victor One, was standing in the hall of his neighbour’s house. Wilson was a fleshy man of about fifty, a man who could drink half a bottle of whisky at a sitting, a man who had made himself what he was, whatever that was. Now, his expression was heavy and dangerous and his complexion one shade deeper than usual. He still wore his overcoat and hat and he was trying to break away from the curious questioning of Burrows, his neighbour, a local solicitor.

‘Well, thanks for letting me use your phone,’ Wilson said, moving to the door. ‘I like their bloody nerve cutting mine.’

‘Are the police sending somebody?’ Burrows asked.

‘They’d better do. I’ve lost a packet of stuff. I’ll bet you that much, a packet.’

‘Haven’t you looked?’

‘I haven’t had a chance to look.’

‘You’re insured, though, aren’t you?’

Wilson twitched impatiently. ‘For some of it. Not all. Not by a long chalk. Well, I’m off.’

‘D’you want me to go with you?’ Burrows asked with a sudden rush of bravery to the head. ‘They might well be hanging about, you know.’

‘If they are, I’ll break their bloody necks for them. But they’ll be gone. Don’t you worry about that. They’ll be gone all right.’

Burrows lifted the whisky decanter from the hall table. ‘What about one before you go back? I should think you need it, don’t you?’

Wilson accepted the large measure with a grunt of thanks. ‘I do,’ he said heavily. ‘I can tell you that. I do!’ He drained the glass at a gulp. It seemed to have no noticeable effect on him. ‘Well, I’d best get back. The police should be there any time.’

Jock Weir steered Z Victor One into the gravelled drive of The Cedars, Watson Road. He braked, switched off, and both he and Fancy got out of the car in one practised movement. The two doors closed with a twin clunk and Fancy and Jock stared up at the large house, with one downstairs light burning and the front door wide open.

‘You take the garden, Jock. I’ll go straight in. All right?’ Fancy shouted. Jock nodded, and pulling out his torch, ran swiftly towards the rear of the house.

Fancy tiptoed cautiously on rubber soles, into the hallway. His feet sank deep in pile carpets and he could see at a glance why any tealeaf should try a breakin here. There was obviously plenty of loot to be had.

‘Police!’ he called. ‘Anybody home?’

There was no reply. Boldly now, Fancy walked into the first room on the right, the one with the light blazing. Fancy gazed at it. It was in a state of organised disorder, Drawers were open, cupboards ajar, their contents spilled onto the floor. The mantelshelf was bare.

‘I’ll bet there was a damn’ good clock there,’ was Fancy’s first reflection, ‘before these lads got in.’

In exasperation mixed with admiration he tried to make an assessment. First of all, this was a professional job. This had been a luxurious, even vulgar room, and now the only items of value left in it were things too heavy to carry away.

Fancy ran into the hall, to meet Jock just coming in.

‘Nobody round the back,’ Jock said. ‘Have you been upstairs?’

‘Just doing. You take the rest of the rooms downstairs. O.K.?’ Jock nodded. He never spoke unless there was anything to say. Even at moments like this. This slightly irritated Fancy. He charged up the stairs and went into each of the bedrooms in turn. They were untouched, apart from. Wilson’s master-bedroom, a room in singularly horrible taste with a quilted headboard at the top of the bed, the sort of thing Fancy associated with French actresses and bottles of champagne.

Fancy did not think the room was in horrible taste. He thought it was in very good taste indeed. ‘By Gow,’ he said to himself. ‘This chap Wilson must be worth a bob or two, him and his black silk pyjamas!’ For he had noticed these articles laid out on the bed. He also noticed (but didn’t touch) an open jewel-case, now quite empty.

He turned and ran downstairs.

Jock was standing in the middle of Wilson’s living-room when Fancy entered. His expression was mild and his voice even milder.

‘Well, he’s been done all right, Fancy.’

‘Aye, it’s a pro job, is this,’ said Fancy, looking round. ‘They haven’t left him much, but ’appen he’s got plenty more where all this lot came from. How’dja like to live in a house like this one, Jock?’

Jock grinned. ‘I’d like it fine. Why, are you going to buy me one?’

Fancy gazed at the drink table. An enviable and costly collection of Scotch, gin, cognac, sherry, port and various other bottles containing, Fancy suspected, liqueurs. In these he had no particular interest. He’d only ever drunk a liqueur once in his life, when he had asked for (and been given) a double Benedictine at the Station Hotel outside Blackpool North station one Illuminations weekend. He had not thought a lot of it.

‘He does himself well, does this chap,’ Fancy said. ‘Every drink you and me can’t afford.’

‘Put that down, Fancy! There might be dabs.’

‘I’ve got my gloves on,’ Fancy said. ‘I’m telling you, Jock, you don’t have to be clever to own a place like this. You just have to be smart.’

‘Then why aren’t you in one?’ Jock asked, noting the cut telephone cord.

Fancy went across to the windows and looked for signs of entry. There were none. ‘But what’s anybody done to deserve a place like this? All any man can do is a day’s work!’

‘I think they came in the back door,’ Jock said. … He looked up. ‘You start asking yourself questions like that, Fancy, and you won’t stay in the Force very long. The Chief’s house isn’t as big as this, and I don’t see you getting his job this year.’

‘Aye, the back way would be favourite,’ Fancy said. ‘There’s no marks on the window sills. I wonder where this Wilson bloke is, anyway?’

‘Here.’

The two lads swung round. Wilson stood in the doorway. To Jock at least it was obvious that he had heard some of their conversation. Jock hesitated for a moment, but Fancy was under no such inhibition. ‘Mr. Wilson?’

‘Now who did I just say I was?’

Fancy straightened his cap, slowly unbuttoned his tunic pocket and took out his notebook. ‘Now, sir,’ he said slowly, ‘if you’ll just give me all the details.’

Wilson snapped, ‘I’ve already given the details to your control room on the telephone.’

‘Yes, sir, I know,’ said Fancy. ‘But I’d better have an idea of what’s gone, then we’ll know what we’re looking for, won’t we, sir?’

‘I arrived home to find my house burgled, and I’m expected to give you a list?’

Fancy ignored the outburst. ‘Did you see anybody when you came back, sir?’

Wilson shook his head. ‘He must’ve heard my car. When I garaged it, he dashed out straight past me.’

‘You’d know him again, sir?’ Jock asked.

‘I doubt it. It was too dark.’

‘Then you wouldn’t know him again?’ Fancy asked heavily.

‘No, I wouldn’t,’ Wilson shouted. ‘But he can’t have got far, whoever he is.’

‘How long ago was this, sir?’ Fancy demanded.

Wilson walked despairingly around the room. He slammed one of the open drawers shut with a bang. ‘I don’t know. About ten minutes, I suppose. My telephone was cut. I had to go to my neighbour’s.’

Fancy interrupted, ‘Did you hear a car or anything start up after this man dashed past you in the drive, sir?’

‘No, I didn’t. I came straight in here.’ Wilson walked across to Fancy and put his angry face close to Fancy’s impassive one. ‘Why aren’t you doing something, man?’ he demanded.

‘I am, sir.’ Fancy gazed back at him evenly. ‘I’m doing me job.’

‘Why don’t you send out a warning? Tell them to look for him?’

‘They’re doing that already, sir,’ Jock said placatingly. ‘But we have to have a list of the missing items.’

‘Good God, is that all you men think about?’ Wilson cried. ‘A list!’ He gazed at their unmoving faces.

‘Sir,’ Fancy said. ‘The quicker we get it the quicker we can do something.’

Wilson swept his hand along the empty mantelshelf. ‘The clock’s gone. It’s a French thing. It’s an antique. I don’t know what period, but it’s got a glass dome and you can see all the works.’ Fancy noted this in his book. Wilson tugged open two drawers of the oak sideboard. ‘And all the silver, by the look of it. Three large canteens. Sixty-four pieces, solid silver, all gone! And a fish set.’

‘Got it, sir,’ Fancy said. ‘What else can you see, sir?’

Wilson sighed. ‘Some pieces of Wedgewood from this glass case. Nice pieces. My wife’s collection.’

‘Wedgewood. Colour, sir?’

‘Blue.’ Wilson looked impatient. ‘My wife’s in Jamaica on holiday so I’m alone at the moment. I’ve been away this weekend on business.’

A slight smile appeared at the corner of Fancy Smith’s mouth and at the same moment Wilson saw his reflection in the large gilt mirror which the thieves had obviously considered too heavy to carry away.

A faint but discernible smear of lipstick was to be seen on his collar.

‘All right,’ he shouted, suddenly very angry indeed. ‘Get on with it, will you!’

‘Are those the main items, sir?’ Jock asked sympathetically.

‘Yes, down here,’ Wilson replied. ‘They took everything except—’ He paused, his eyes searching the room.

‘Except what, sir?’ Fancy asked.

‘Nothing,’ Wilson said firmly, his eyes suddenly narrow and suspicious. ‘Nothing at all.’

CAPPY SEDDON steered his ancient but powerful A.J.S. south along the East Lancashire Road, hard into the headlights of long-distance lorries going north. He removed one chilled and cramped hand from the handlebars and pulled the neb of his large and oily cap (which his acquaintances insisted he never removed, even in bed) even further down over his watering eyes.

‘By the, left,’ he shouted into the slipstream. ‘That’s a thin wind. I’m bloody starved.’

His pillion rider and brother-in-law, Walter Boothman, shouted back, ‘It’s none so bad.’

‘It’s all right for thee,’ Cappy shouted. ‘I’m keeping it off thee.’

Cappy Seddon didn’t care much for his brother-in-law. There were times when Cappy thought that Mrs. Seddon was a good deal fonder of her brother than she was of her husband. But there was no denying that they worked together very well as a team. Once they were out of the Seddon home Cappy was the. . .