Tom Graham - A Fistful of Knuckles

‘I’ve brought me selection of hi-tech goodies,’ Ray said, and plonked a tatty cardboard box on the table. He rummaged inside, the said proudly: ‘Cop a gander at this beauty, boss! The Grundig!’

He produced a portable tape recorder the size of a mansize box of tissues. It had big red buttons sticking out the front of it.

Sam stared blankly at it.

‘Well, don’t look at it like it’s just let off,’ said Ray, defensively.

Sam sighed: ‘We’re conducting an undercover operation, Ray, not an interview. That thing’s the size of a bloody house brick!’

‘House brick?’ retorted Ray. ‘This baby’s the smallest recorder on the market. Look, even the tapes are tiny.’

‘ Dead tiny!’ Chris agreed, impressed. ‘I never seen tapes so tiny! That is tiny !’

‘See? Chris understands. Don’t turn your nose up, boss, it’s dead new.’

‘And Grundig’s a quality brand,’ put in Chris.

‘And how precisely am I going to conceal it?’ Sam asked. ‘Shove it in my pocket and hope no one notices?’

‘Don’t be daft,’ said Ray. He stuck the Grundig under his jacket and then tried to act natural.

‘I can see a bulge,’ said Sam. He ignored Chris’s sniggers and added: ‘The Grundig’s a real doozy, Ray, but we need undercover surveillance equipment that can’t be seen from the moon. What else have you got?’

‘Well, there’s always the thingy,’ said Ray, rummaging again in the box.

‘The whaty?’

‘The thingy.’

He pulled out a metal box, the size of a box of kitchen matches, with coloured wires sticking out of it every which way.

‘There you go — the thingy,’ declared Ray, holding it up like it was a dead insect. ‘I thought we had a couple more of ‘em.’ He hunted about in the box, to no avail. ‘Nope. Somebody must’ve buggered ‘em and slung ‘em out. They’re a bit flimsy.’

‘A bit flimsy?’ said Sam. ‘Ray, I’ve seen tougher cobwebs than this.’

‘At least it’s small,’ volunteered Chris.

‘That’s right,’ said Ray. ‘You can hide it under your shirt. Pin it to your tit or whatever. Walk about all day with it on, no one’ll clock it.’

‘But does it actually work?’

‘On and off,’ Ray admitted with admirable honesty. ‘Don’t play with the wires, it breaks the solder. And don’t shake it. Or get it wet.’

Ray fished about in the cardboard box again and this time produced a random assortment of Eveready batteries. He tested a 7 volt one with his tongue, then fitted it into the body of the bug.

‘There you go,’ he said. ‘All juiced up.’

‘Is it in full working order?’ asked Sam.

‘Dunno.’

‘Well, can we test it? Where’s the receiver?’

Ray hauled out a huge lump of metal and plastic strapped together with duct tape. He fiddled with the massive on-off knob, and static began to hiss from the round grill on the front.

‘Go on Boss, give it a blast.’

Sam counted one, two, one, two into the thingy. His words emerged from the grill on the receiver — crackling and distorted, but just about audible.

Chris’s eyes shone: ‘Oh, yes! It’s like James Bond, this!’ And in the voice of Q he added: ‘Pay attention, 007. There’s a poison dart concealed in this wristwatch. Mind out that you don’t shoot it up your jacksie when you’re having a wipe. It nacks like a bitch, take it from me.’

Sam looked flatly at him: ‘Thank you, Christopher. But if we can just momentarily return to the world of the grown-ups, I need to know if this tatty bit of fourth form electrics is the best equipment we’ve got.’

‘We’re CID, guv, not Tomorrow’s World ,’ said Ray.

‘Isn’t that the truth,’ Sam sighed. ‘Well — we’ll just have to work with what we’ve got.’

‘Like the actress said to the bishop,’ put in Chris. And grinning, he waited in vain for the laughter. The silence slowly wiped the grin from his face.

‘Right then,’ said Sam, ignoring him. ‘I’ll conceal this ‘thingy’ beneath my shirt. Ray — Chris — you two sit in the car nearby, recording everything on the Grundig. Make sure all the equipment works, boys. I don’t want the electrics going phooey on us.’

‘Yes, Guv. I mean Boss,’ Ray and Chris said in perfect unison.

‘And remember,’ Sam went on, ‘be on standby to either rush in and help me arrest Patsy, or else send a warning to Annie that O’Riordan’s on his way back. It’s vital, boys, it’s vital that Annie can rely on you, absolutely, one hundred and fifty percent. Her life might depend on you getting word to her in time. Is that clear?’

‘We should arrange for back-up,’ put in Ray. ‘Get some uniformed boys on standby in case things kick off.’

‘We don’t want things to kick off,’ said Sam. ‘We want to keep it as low key as possible. The more manpower we draft in, the more chance Patsy or one of his lads will get the wind up, and then this whole thing will have been for nothing. Let’s just keep this operation streamlined, yes? We’re CID, we can handle this. Agreed?’

‘Yes, boss.’

Sam turned to Annie: ‘Are you happy with this arrangement?’

Annie looked down at the array of electrical rubbish scattered about on the table in front of her. The colour drained slightly from her cheeks. She said: ‘It’s not the equipment I’m putting my trust in — it’s my colleagues.’

‘Quite right. I hope you two boys are listening,’ said Sam, looking across at them intently.

‘We’re listening, boss,’ said Ray. He nudged Chris with his elbow.

‘What? Oh, aye, yeah, me too,’ piped up Chris. ‘Listening like a hawk.’

Sunday evening. A wretched, grey evening was settling over the city, against which Terry Barnard’s Fairground hurled out its lights and noise and music as if raging against the dying of the light.

From inside an unmarked car parked on the very edge of the open ground where the fairground was pitched, Sam peered through a rickety pair of police binoculars. Beside him, in the front passenger seat, sat Ray; squeezed together in the back were Chris, Annie, and Spider.

‘Business as usual at the fair,’ said Sam, surveying the scene. ‘Looks like a few bits and pieces are already being packed up — the fair moves on tomorrow morning, first thing.’ He scanned across. ‘There it is! The arena for the fight.’

He passed the binoculars to Ray, who squinted through them, nervously chewing his gum.

‘Away to the left — four caravans, parked up into a square,’ said Sam.

‘I see ‘em, Boss.’

Ray offered the binoculars to Spider, but Spider made no move to take them; he was as silent and withdrawn as before, focused in on himself, utterly self-contained. In contrast, Chris was bouncing in his seat excitedly, his head full of 007 and daring commando raids. He grabbed the binoculars and mucked about with the focus.

‘This is hopeless!’ he whined. ‘Why can I see two lots of everything?’

‘Try it with one eye closed,’ said Ray.

‘I don’t want to do it with one eye closed,’ Chris complained. ‘They’re binocs. You do binocs with both eyes. You don’t see James Bond doing binocs with one eye, do you? You think he’d pull all them birds doing binocs with one eye?’

Ignoring him, Sam turned to Ray: ‘You’ve got the receiver ready to go?’

‘Aye, boss.’

Ray produced the bulky receiver from beneath the passenger seat and twiddled the knobs. Feedback howled out of the loudspeaker grill, making everybody wince — even Spider — and Ray instantly switched it off.

‘Well, at least that shows it’s got batteries,’ said Sam. He fidgeted with the microphone taped uncomfortably to his chest. ‘Are you sure it’s not obvious I’m wired?’