The liquidator

Snow-white doves silhouetted against a winter-sharp blue sky.

The release of twenty of them from somewhere thirty minutes before kick-off was presumably deliberate, Tallyforth surmised. Some executive decision, made no doubt in response to the Football Association's pleas to clubs to remember that the game was now, in the nineteen-nineties, all-round family entertainment.

Or was it some local punter's ironic response to the war without swords which the derby between Wolverhampton Wanderers and West Bromwich Albion inevitably engendered?

The crowd's response was less ironic when, minutes later, the favourite Molineux tune, which had preceded the arrival on to the pitch of successive Wolves teams for many years, blared out from the powerful loudspeakers placed around the ground--The Liquidator, by Harry J. and the All Stars. Its tune was echoed around the pitch with a deep and growing roar as the home fans got ready to unleash their favourite chant on the song's final few notes:

"F*** OFF, WEST BROM!"

It hadn't all changed for the better then.

Detective Chief Inspector Tallyforth snuggled into his turned-up overcoat collar, as he felt the cold end-of-January wind come whipping into the new Billy Wright Stand of the Molineux stadium where he sat. It had been Chief Superintendent 'Nobby' Clarke's idea that they come.

'Remind us of the old days, Tallyforth,' he had said. 'You used to enjoy football. Why don't you go these days? Big crowds, lots more entertainment, less mob violence. I can get tickets for the derby. Are you on?'

And Tallyforth had found it difficult to refuse.

Ever since the previous summer, or, more precisely, ever since his return from the Skye holiday which had proved so problematic, Clarke had been keeping watch over him. And, though at times he resented the oversolicitousness of his superior officer's attentions, Tallyforth had been grateful overall. Without that watchfulness, he knew, he and George Elliott would never have got back to a working relationship. For 'Nobby' Clarke had been keeping watch over her as well, one result of which being that she had now been made up to acting inspector rank - Detective Inspector Georgina Elliott, as she was officially now known, though everyone in the Mercian Force still called her George.

So he really did feel grateful to 'Nobby' Clarke and, though he didn't really need minding any longer, Tallyforth had agreed to accompany him to the Molineux derby between the two local Black Country teams 'for old times' sake'. Tallyforth and 'Nobby' Clarke had once worked together in Wolverhampton, back in the late nineteen-sixties, when Tallyforth was first taken on by the C.I.D. branch and Clarke was a very young inspector in the traffic division.

'That's Sir Jack,' said 'Nobby' Clarke, leaning his camel overcoat towards Tallyforth and touching his arm. As he spoke, his breath frosted into steam in front of his face and slowly climbed to his close-cropped silver hair. He took a leather-gloved hand from his overcoat pocket and pointed down to the pitch. 'Met him once or twice when I was with traffic division here. Before he became seriously rich in the Bahamas and bought the Wolves.'

In the middle of the football pitch a wooden table and two wooden chairs had been set. On these chairs sat two elderly-looking men, one of whom was waving to the crowd. Presumably that was Sir Jack, Tallyforth thought, but who was the other man?

'That's the chief executive of Goodyears,' said Clarke, as if he had read Tallyforth's mind. 'They're signing a new sponsorship agreement, tying Wolves to Goodyears for the next four years till 2002.'

'Really?' sniffed Tallyforth.

'No, of course they're not really signing a piece of paper! The deal's been done ages. But it's symbolic,' replied 'Nobby' Clarke sarcastically. 'Where have you been, Tallyforth? It's all part of the pre-match entertainment. Look!'

Tallyforth looked to his left and saw a massive football shirt in the old gold-and-black colours of Wolverhampton Wanderers and with the Goodyear logo being raised by the crowd above their heads in the old North Bank area - now re-christened as the Stan Cullis Stand, after the manager of the club in its heady days of success. Simultaneously, hundreds of gold and black balloons were released from around the ground and floated slowly towards the grassy pitch. In the opposite corner of the ground but still facing him, Tallyforth could see on a huge video-screen a close-up of the two men at the table shaking hands and grinning at each other. For some reason, this was a cue for the crowd to set up a bout of loud applause, as if it had been to watch these two elderly men shake hands that they had paid to get into the ground on that bitterly cold Saturday afternoon.

Tallyforth pushed his hands deeper into his overcoat pockets and stamped his feet to bring some life back into them.

And something in that brief moment's movement reminded him for some reason he knew not why of Balbir Singh, sitting behind the desk in the front office of the old central Wolverhampton police station in Red Lion Street almost exactly thirty years ago.

* * * * *

January the tenth, nineteen sixty-eight. It had been a day of black ice on the roads, which had brought the usual spate of accidents in the town itself and on all the major roads leading into Wolverhampton. It had been the sort of a day when newly-promoted Inspector Albert 'Nobby' Clarke, temporarily in charge of traffic division, could feel that his life's ambition was completely fulfilled, as he felt the power of making decisions to divert traffic away from disaster areas or to keep it stacked up in long lines awaiting the removal of two mangled vehicles whose drivers had misjudged the treacherous road surface and skidded head on into each other. For power, as many have noted, even such seemingly insignificant power as 'Nobby' Clarke wielded that day, is its own aphrodisiac.

So, when he had strode into the old police station late that afternoon, when all the ice had finally melted, all diversions ended, all wrecked cars taken to garages or scrap yards, in short when all roads had been returned to normal, Inspector 'Nobby' Clarke had wanted to display his authority.

'What's the matter with you, constable?' he had asked sharply of the first policeman he had seen as he had come into the front office.

'Feeling the cold,' had come the reply from between chattering teeth. 'Not used to this weather.'

Clarke, standing ramrod-straight, had looked disdainfully at the forlorn figure before him who was stamping his feet rhythmically to maintain circulation.

'Don't you know to address a superior officer as 'sir'?' had barked Clarke, taking off his police cap to reveal close-cropped brown hair. 'What's your name, constable?'

'Police Constable Balbir Singh, sir,' had come the reply from the figure which no longer crouched shivering on a stool in front of a one-bar electric fire but had now pulled itself upright, with chest out and stomach held in. He was a tall handsome man, with an aquiline nose and thinning hair.

'How long have you been working here, constable?' Clarke had asked, pausing to take in the implications of the other man's reply - he had not at first noticed the colour of Balbir Singh's skin.

'Three weeks, sir. Since I finished basic training in Birmingham.'

'Are you Indian?' Clarke had queried, one eye raised quizzically.

'British Indian, sir,' had come Balbir Singh's reply. 'I've lived in England for three years now.'

Clarke had looked him up and down, a thin smile playing on his lips.

'Bit unusual one of your lot joining the police, isn't it?' Clarke had said. 'You normally keep yourselves to yourselves, don't you?'

'Yes, sir,' Balbir Singh had answered, not sure how he was expected to respond so deciding that being non-committal was likely to be the best course.

'Nobby' Clarke had stared through his ice-cold eyes at the brown-skinned constable who stood before him. Then he had marched in a circle around him, the creases on his trousers staying sharp as he moved.

'Well, I hope you're not going to be bringing any of your colonial ways into the Mercian Force here in Wolverhampton,' Clarke had continued at last. 'I don't care what sort of laziness you were used to out in India, here we expect you to observe rank correctly. Clear, constable?'

'Sir.'

'Good.'

And 'Nobby' Clarke had marched off.

Soon afterwards, Tallyforth, then a detective constable, had returned to the police station from a fruitless inquiry out in the Low Hill area about a domestic fracas two nights previously, which both sides to the dispute were now denying had happened at all, though one of them had definitely called the police at the time.

'What's up, Singh? Missing your turban?' he had called out, seeing the scrunched up figure of Balbir Singh in front of the electric fire, drumming his feet again to bring back the circulation.

Balbir Singh had turned his head around and smiled. In the short period of time they had known each other, he had come to have an affectionate regard for Tallyforth. It had been to Tallyforth, and Tallyforth alone, that he had vouchsafed the information that he had come from India, where he had been a sergeant in the police, to start a new life in England. As a Sikh, however, he had discovered that he could not get work as a policeman because he wore a turban and because of the length of his hair. Nor had he been able to find any other work appropriate to his experience and qualifications. Consequently, he had had to take a job working on the night shift in an iron foundry in Smethwick in order to support himself and, at the same time, to save enough money so that his wife could join him from India. Now that she was with him and their first child was expected, he had decided to sacrifice the badges of his culture in order to find work that was more suited to his experience and background. So he had cut off his long hair, shaved off his beard and placed his turban at the bottom of a drawer in their house. In this way, he had been accepted into the Mercian Police Force - the first non-white police officer to be so selected - and found himself appointed to his first post in Wolverhampton.

'I'm beginning to ask myself if I have done the right thing, my friend,' Balbir Singh had replied, still drumming his feet as he turned to face Tallyforth. 'I'm not used to this cold weather. I was working in the foundry this time last year and it is always very hot in there. I can hardly stand up I'm so cold. And Inspector Clarke doesn't seem to have taken too kindly to me.'

'You'll get used to it,' Tallyforth had said, putting an arm round his shoulders. 'Clarke's just been promoted. He's just showing off, feeling his way. He'll ease up in time. Don't worry about him. Fancy a cup of tea?'

Balbir Singh, cheered by his friend's warmth, had smiled and stood up.

'As long as it's Indian,' he had said.

* * * * *

Tallyforth was wondering why he had agreed to come after all. The match so far had been truly dire. Few of the players seemed capable of passing the ball to one of their own side, most of them resorting to simply hoofing it upfield as if glad to get rid of it. Even the crowd were getting restless with the poverty of skills on display. The high point of the match so far for them, at least for the twenty five thousand of them who were Wolves fans, had been the carrying off of the blonde-haired Albion midfielder, Richard Sneekes, after two desperately high tackles had left him badly injured and bleeding. In a match of no goals, the baying for blood which accompanied his stretchering off was the most that the Wolves fans had enjoyed in the cold afternoon.

At half time, 'Nobby' Clarke had produced a small hip flask from the inside pocket of his camel-hair overcoat and passed it to Tallyforth.

'Better than Bovril in a polystyrene cup, eh, Tallyforth?' he had said, winking conspiratorially.

'I thought alcohol was banned inside football grounds these days,' Tallyforth had retorted, surprised at his superior's attitude.

'The serving of it is, yes, that's true,' Clarke had replied, pressing the hip flask in Tallyforth's direction. 'But how do you stop your average football supporter from getting tanked up before entering the ground? And how can you search every single one of them for private supplies?'

Tallyforth, never a man known to refuse a drink, had then taken the thin metal container and glugged a few shots of whisky down his throat.

'Enjoy that?' Clarke had queried, raising an eyebrow. 'It's Irish.'

Tallyforth had nodded, wiping his mouth on his coat sleeve as he did so and tucking his scarf back into place around his neck. He had still been surprised that Chief Superintendent Clarke, the paragon of all policing values and behaviours, had chosen to break a law of the land in this way.

'Everything still alright between you and Elliott?' Clarke had then asked nonchalantly, as he had tucked the hip flask back into his coat pocket.

Tallyforth had looked sharply at his superior officer.

'Fine,' he mumbled. 'Just fine.'

No point giving chapter and verse, he had thought. No need to tell Clarke about the wrangling, about the threats, about the storms, about the compromises made behind closed doors.

'Good,' Clarke had said. 'Glad it's all ended satisfactorily.'

And he had sat down, leaving the poisonous waters he had disturbed in Tallyforth's brain to eddy and froth. He remembered her naked body asleep next to his, curled comfortably into his groin, but almost simultaneously he recalled her face contorted with anger when they were arguing about some triviality. A shiver ran across his shoulders.

But there had been no time for those murky waters to dominate Tallyforth's mind, for at that instant the players trotted out from the changing rooms under the stand to resume battle.

As the second half got under way and the performance of the two teams failed to improve on that seen in the first half, the crowd's enthusiasm turned first to restlessness and then to irritation. In the Billy Wright Stand, where Tallyforth and Clarke were sitting, the mood of annoyance with the Wolves performance was palpable. As he looked round at the tense faces of his fellow-spectators and saw the lines of disappointment etched on them, he surmised that many of them were of a similar age to himself, had supported their team for the greater part of their lives, had brought their sons to watch games, had progressed from standing in their teens for every match behind the goals in the old North or South Banks to buying season tickets in their forties and fifties in the newly-furbished Billy Wright Stand. And they were all, as he could see from their scarves and bobble hats, Wolves supporters through and through, still hoping for a return to the glories of yesteryear when the team of their childhood had been First Division Champions and F.A. Cup Winners and when Billy Wright, the golden-haired boy from Ironbridge who was Wolves and England captain, had led his stalwarts out on to the pitch.

Tallyforth recalled that in recent years, because of the troubles between opposing fans in the nineteen-eighties, strict segregation had been insisted upon in football grounds, as well as the introduction of all-seater stadia after the Hillsborough disaster of nineteen eighty-nine. All the West Bromwich fans were herded into a small section in the John Ireland Stand facing them where visiting supporters now sat, segregated from the home fans. There would be no Baggies fans in the stand where he and Clarke sat. That was guaranteed.

The match was dire. Really dire. Tallyforth, who was not nowadays much of a football fan, gazed around him again and noted that, though there were more women and more children than he remembered from his younger days, those in the seats in the area immediately surrounding him were mostly male, mostly middle-aged like himself, and mostly white, even though both teams contained several black players. He thought again of Balbir Singh and of how, despite the social changes of the past thirty years which had brought a greater acceptance by the indigenous white population of the black- and brown-skinned families who had settled in the West Midlands, this football crowd and, he suspected, most others in the country barely represented the constitution of the overall population.

He was watching the anguished faces of some of those around him when, suddenly, a goal was scored. West Bromwich Albion's forward player, Andy Hunt, volleyed a shot into the net after Wolves' goalkeeper Mike Stowell had punched away a previous attempt.

The small number of Albion fans on the opposite side of the ground immediately went delirious with excitement. They danced, they waved their scarves, they cheered, they sang. The Wolves fans, however, by far the largest part of the spectator audience, first of all groaned, then shook their collective heads in disbelief, then began chanting at the Albion fans:

"YOU'RE GONNA GET YOUR F***ING HEADS KICKED IN"

to the accompaniment of rhythmical clapping from some and finger pointing in the direction of the Albion supporters from others. The mood of the Wolves crowd had turned noticeably ugly.

Tallyforth sat up straight in his seat, tense, almost as if expecting trouble - all those years of police work had made his antennae particularly alert to danger. He glanced sideways and noticed that 'Nobby' Clarke had not shifted in his position. Too many years sat behind a desk, surmised Tallyforth.

But it was then that the incident occurred.

Tallyforth suddenly became aware that a slight commotion was taking place a dozen or so rows behind them. He noticed that two or three in the row in front of them had turned around and were craning their necks to see what the disturbance was. He too turned his head to look, as did 'Nobby' Clarke, and, it seemed, about half of that block of the stand. For by now the noise of some altercation was louder.

At first, Tallyforth could see nothing, other than a steward in a fluorescent yellow jacket moving along a row of seats in the direction of a man with curly peroxide-blond hair and wearing a smart black overcoat, who sat grinning wickedly. But, as Tallyforth glanced along the row, he saw that there were angry faces looking at this man and angry mouths were saying things to him and angry fingers were being pointed at him. Then suddenly, the yellow-jacketed steward was escorting the grinning man out of his seat and along the row towards the gangway, past some of those whose anger had been directed at him. The man's grin, a sort of gloating expression, had remained with him as he was moved out, even though Tallyforth could see that some knees were being deliberately dug into him as he passed and one man spat in his face.

'What's going on?' asked 'Nobby' Clarke, turning away from the incident and towards Tallyforth. 'Did you see anything?'

A fat man who was sitting two seats away from Tallyforth cut in before the latter could answer.

'F***ing Baggies fan!' he expostulated. 'F***ing got in the Wolves end! F***ing deserves what he gets, f***ing bastard!'

As if for emphasis, and to ensure that the Albion fan in question was in no doubt about his feelings, the fat man stood up and called out at the man in the black overcoat who was now being escorted down the gangway towards the exit:

'F***ing bastard!'

Others were also standing and gesticulating and shouting obscenities at the man, who grinned back at them and then, as he reached the steps leading to the exit, turned and gave them a cheery wave. This succeeded in infuriating the Wolves fans even more and their shouting grew greater.

Apparently the man in question had sat quietly in the Wolves section of the crowd throughout the first three quarters of the game, saying little and giving away no indication of his partisanship. Until the goal. At which point, forgetting where he was and amongst whom he was sitting, he had leapt up from his seat to cheer his beloved West Bromwich Albion. Which, of course, was a risky thing to do in the circumstances.

But something about the man was troubling Tallyforth. Underneath the peroxide-blond hair was a face that he recognised from somewhere - from somewhere in his distant past, he was sure. And even though that face was now heavily lined and the eyes had large bags underneath them; even though the hair in its current blond manifestation made the man look quite different; even though it had been thirty years since he had last seen him, Tallyforth knew that it was the face of Micky Wilde.

'You alright, Tallyforth?' asked 'Nobby' Clarke, turning in Tallyforth's direction. 'You look as if you'd seen a ghost. Want another nip?'

He reached into his inside pocket for the hip-flask but, before he could produce it, Tallyforth answered him.

'No, thank you, sir,' he said quickly, shaking his head briefly, as if to remind himself where he was and that he had not been dreaming. 'I think I have seen a ghost. I'm sure I know who he was. Is.'

Clarke cocked an eyebrow.

'We know him?' he asked.

'I certainly do,' responded Tallyforth through tight lips. 'That was Micky Wilde. You may not remember him back in sixty-eight but I certainly do. Not a very nice person at all.'

* * * * *

Back in sixty-eight. A time of men in flowing robes and long loose hair, of women in floor-length dresses accessorised with beads and bells; a time of psychedelic colours of purple, orange, and green printed on velvet fabrics; a time of loose-fitting shirts over tight-fitting flared trousers; a time when jewellery collections for men became fashionable and when women sought to imitate the wide-eyed hippie look with their cosmetics; a time of afro hairstyles; a time of the Beatles' White Album, of Simon and Garfunkel's Mrs Robinson, of the Rolling Stones' Jumping Jack Flash, and of Cream's Disraeli Gears.

Nineteen sixty-eight, with its heralding of youth freedom, was the year when Tallyforth, recently made a detective in Wolverhampton after four years on the beat in Dudley, first made the acquaintance of Micky Wilde.

At first, it was no more than an awareness of this character around the town who was always dressed in more outrageous clothing than any of the rest of his contemporaries. The San Francisco hippy fashions had caught on in Wolverhampton as elsewhere, particularly among the town's Art College students. And it was from the Art College that Micky Wilde, as Tallyforth later discovered, came. His favourite regalia was a rich purple velvet suit with a ruffed cream shirt underneath, giving him a Regency Dandy look. At that time he wore his brown hair shoulder length and sported a Zapata moustache. Frequently while on duty in the town centre, Tallyforth would see him coming out of one of the pubs, like Madame Clarke's or the Giffard Arms, or standing deep in conversation with other weirdly-dressed art students outside the Queen's Ballroom in Victoria Square or, later in the evenings, strolling casually around the town with some long-blonde-haired girl draped around him. The girls all looked the same - long blonde hair, long dresses with bells and beads, their faces vacant and pasty, as if they never saw daylight.

So Tallyforth had noted this character, whose name at the time he hadn't been aware of, though he was to know it soon enough.

The tip-off came from his fellow officer, Constable Balbir Singh. The latter had learned from a cousin of his, whom he had met at the monthly feast at their gurdwara in Smethwick, that certain white youths from Wolverhampton had been making enquiries of some of the younger members of the Indian communities living in the West Midlands concerning the possibility of getting hashish brought in from abroad. Prominent amongst these white youths was one Micky Wilde, who stood out from the rest because of the way he dressed - usually in a deep purple velvet suit.

'You say his name's Micky Wilde?' Tallyforth had asked, making a note of it in his pocket-book.

'That's what my cousin says,' Balbir Singh had replied, sipping from his tea in the police canteen. 'Apparently he is the ringleader. He claims to have been to Afghanistan and smoked very strong hashish there and wants to know how to get some into this country. He seems to think that my cousin's friends are constantly going backwards and forwards to India and could easily make arrangements to procure this hashish for him and bring it into England.'

Tallyforth had listened carefully to all this, making occasional notes.

'And what has their reaction been?' he had asked.

Balbir Singh had shifted a little uncomfortably on the plastic chair.

'My friend, in every community there are dishonest people,' he had replied. 'Your people would like to think that all of us Asians are dishonest, that we are leeching on the English welfare state, that we do not like work. But that is not true. But, ever since your Mr Powell said what he did about the rivers of blood coming from racial conflict, the situation of people like me has got worse. They don't abuse me when I'm in uniform, at least not within my hearing. But, out of uniform, whenever I go for a walk on Sundays with my wife in West Bromwich where I live, some white youth or other will shout out 'Paki bastard, go home!' Always. Every week. Every time.'

It had been Tallyforth's turn to be uncomfortable.

'They're just ignorant louts,' he had responded. 'You shouldn't take any notice. We're not all like that, you know.'

'My friend, you cannot know what it is like for us Indians in your country,' Balbir Singh had answered, his eyes now gleaming with anger. 'I thought I was the lucky one, to have been appointed to the police force. In India, we admire the British police force because we believe that it is the best in the world. Too many officials in India are corrupt and some policemen, like the rest, can be tempted by money. But we believe the British police to be above that.'

'And aren't we?' Tallyforth had quizzed.

'I am not saying there is corruption for money, but I do know that most of your colleagues dislike us Indians. I have ears, you know, my friend Tallyforth. I can hear them talking in the canteen when they think I am not listening, talking about the catshit that's put into the curries in Indian restaurants, about the way we smell, about us scrounging off the welfare state. And they mimic our speech, by using silly voices, like that Peter Sellers. And they tell jokes about us.'

'But that's quite harmless,' Tallyforth had protested. 'People have always told jokes against each other. They don't mean anything. And anyway, none of the lads in this station think of you as Indian - you're just a copper like the rest of us.'

'That's just the problem,' Balbir Singh had gone on, sighing a little at the ignorance of his friend. 'They do not see my colour, they do not see that I might be offended by what they say. They do not know, and neither do you, how I feel, when I hear them saying things like "Enoch Powell was right. They should all go home". This is my home. I have a British passport. I have a right to be here. My children will be born in England.'

'Alright, alright! Calm down, Balbir,' Tallyforth had said, noticing the agitation in his friend's face.

'I am sorry. I did not mean.........'. But Balbir Singh's voice had tailed off.

Tallyforth had looked at him as his eyes had cast down towards the table. Was it really as bad as that? Was he as guilty as the rest of his colleagues? He had recalled the racial incidents he had had to deal with in his time in Dudley, most of which involved gang warfare between local white youths and their Jamaican counterparts. Those incidents hadn't seemed to him that much different from the sorts of gang warfare between all-white gangs he had known of as he himself had been growing up. But he had to get Singh to tell him more about this reported drug-dealing.

'What about this Wilde character?' he had prompted.

'My friend, in such a climate and when work is more and more difficult for us Indians to find, you must not be surprised if some of my countrymen think to find other ways of making money.'

'So, you're saying that they're dealing with this Wilde?'

'I am saying that conversations have taken place, according to my cousin. And the older members of my community are not happy about these conversations and about what might happen as a result. I would want you to talk to this Micky Wilde and warn him off. It is not good for my countrymen to be caught up in this.'

But it had been some time before Tallyforth and Micky Wilde had come face to face, for, although he had agreed with Balbir Singh that he ought to initiate just such a conversation, circumstances and other more pressing matters had got in the way of its actually happening.