The Blue Religion

The Price of Love by Peter Robinson

Tommy found the badge on the third day of his summer holiday at Blackpool, the first holiday without his father. The sun had come out that morning, and he was playing on the crowded beach with his mother, who sat in her striped deck chair, smoking Consulate, reading Nova magazine, and keeping an eye on him. Not that he needed an eye kept on him. Tommy was thirteen now and quite capable of going off alone to amuse himself. But his mother had a thing about water, so she never let him near the sea alone. Uncle Arthur had gone to the amusements on the North Pier, where he liked to play the one-armed bandits.

The breeze from the gray Irish Sea was chilly, but Tommy bravely wore his new swimming trunks. He even dipped his toes in the water before running back, squealing, to warm them in the sand. It was then that he felt something sharp prick his big toe. Treasure? He scooped away the sand carefully with his hands while no one was looking. Slowly he pulled out the object by its edge and dusted off the sand with his free hand. It was shaped like a silver shield with a flat top and seven points. At its center was a circle, with METROPOLITAN POLICE curved around the top and bottom of the initials er. On its top were a crown and a tiny cross. The silver glinted in the sunlight.

Tommy’s breath caught in his throat. This was exactly the sign he had been waiting for ever since his father died. It was the same type of badge he had worn on his uniform. Tommy remembered how proud his dad had sounded when he spoke of it. He even let Tommy touch it and told him what er meant: Elizabeth Regina. It was Latin, his father had explained, for the queen. “That’s our queen, Tommy,” he had said proudly. And the cross on top, he went on, symbolized the Church of England. When Tommy held the warm badge there on the beach, he could feel his father’s presence in it.

Tommy decided not to tell anyone. They might make him hand it in somewhere, or just take it off him. Uncle Arthur was always doing that. When Tommy found an old tennis ball in the street, Uncle Arthur said it might have been chewed by a dog and have germs on it, so he threw it in the fire. Then there was the toy cap gun with the broken hammer he found on the recreation ground – “It’s no good if it’s broken, is it?” Uncle Arthur said, and out it went. But this time Uncle Arthur wasn’t going to get his hands on Tommy’s treasure. While his mother was reading her magazine, Tommy went over to his small pile of clothes and slipped the badge in his trouser pocket.

“What are you doing, Tommy?”

He started. It was his mother. “Just looking for my handkerchief,” he said, the first thing he could think of.

“What do you want a handkerchief for?”

“The water was cold,” Tommy said. “I’m sniffling.” He managed to fake a sniffle to prove it.

But his mother’s attention had already returned to her magazine. She never did talk to him for very long these days, didn’t seem much interested in how he was doing at school (badly) or how he was feeling in general (awful). Sometimes it was a blessing, because it made it easier for Tommy to live undisturbed in his own elaborate secret world, but sometimes he felt he would like it if she just smiled at him, touched his arm, and asked him how he was doing. He’d say he was fine. He wouldn’t even tell her the truth because she would get bored if she had to listen to his catalog of woes. His mother had always got bored easily.

This time her lack of interest was a blessing. He managed to get the badge in his pocket without her or anyone else seeing it. He felt official now. No longer was he just playing at being a special agent. Now that he had his badge, he had serious standards to uphold, like his father had always said. And he would start his new role by keeping a close eye on Uncle Arthur.

UNCLE ARTHUR WASN’T his real uncle. Tommy’s mother was an only child, like Tommy himself. It was three months after his father’s funeral when she had first introduced them. She said that Uncle Arthur was an old friend she had known many years ago, and they had just met again by chance on Kensington High Street. Wasn’t that a wonderful coincidence? She had been so lonely since his father had died. Uncle Arthur was fun and made her laugh again. She was sure that Tommy would like him. But Tommy didn’t. And he was certain he had seen Uncle Arthur before, while his father was still alive, but he didn’t say anything.

It was also because of Uncle Arthur that they moved from London to Leeds, although Tommy’s mother said it was because London was becoming too expensive. Tommy had never found it easy to make friends, and up north it was even worse. People made fun of his accent and picked fights with him in the school yard, and a lot of the time he couldn’t even understand what they were saying. He couldn’t understand the teachers either, which was why the standard of his schoolwork slipped.

Once they had moved, Uncle Arthur, who traveled a lot for his job but lived in Leeds, became a fixture at their new house whenever he was in town, and some evenings he and Tommy’s mother would go off dancing, to the pictures, or to the pub and leave Tommy home alone. He liked that because he could play his records and smoke a cigarette in the back garden. Once, he had even drunk some of Uncle Arthur’s vodka and replaced it with water. He didn’t know if Uncle Arthur ever guessed, but he never said anything. Uncle Arthur had just bought his mother a brand-new television too, so Tommy sometimes just sat eating cheese-and-onion crisps, drinking pop, and watching Danger Man or The Saint.

What he didn’t like was when they stopped in. Then they were always whispering or going up to his mother’s room to talk, so that he couldn’t hear what they were saying. But they were still in the house, and even though they were ignoring him, he couldn’t do whatever he wanted or even watch what he wanted on television. Uncle Arthur never hit him or anything – his mother wouldn’t stand for that – but Tommy could tell sometimes that he wanted to. Mostly he took no interest whatsoever. For all Uncle Arthur cared, Tommy might as well have not existed. But he did.

Everyone said Tommy’s mother was pretty. Tommy couldn’t really see it himself, because she was his mother, after all. He thought that Denise Clark at school was pretty. He wanted to go out with her. And Marianne Faithfull, whom he’d seen on Top of the Pops. But she was too old for him, and she was famous. People said he was young for his years and knew nothing about girls. All he knew was that he definitely liked girls. He felt something funny happen to him when he saw Denise Clark walking down the street in her little gray school skirt, white blouse, and maroon V-neck jumper, but he didn’t know what it was, and apart from kissing, which he knew about, and touching breasts, which someone had told him about at school, he didn’t really know what you were supposed to do with a girl when she was charitable enough to let you go out with her.

Tommy’s mother didn’t look at all like Denise Clark or Marianne Faithfull, but she wore more modern and more fashionable clothes than the other women on the street. She had beautiful long blond hair over her shoulders and pale flawless skin, and she put on her pink lipstick, black mascara, and blue eye shadow every day, even if she was only stopping in or going to the shops. Tommy thought some of the women on the street were jealous because she was so pretty and nicely dressed.

Not long after they had moved, he overheard two of their neighbors saying that his mother was full of “London airs and graces” and “no better than she ought to be.” He didn’t know what that meant, but he could tell by the way they said it that it wasn’t meant as a compliment. Then they said something else he didn’t understand about a dress she had worn when his father was only four months in his grave, and they made tut-tutting sounds. That made Tommy angry. He came out of his hiding place and stood in front of them, red-faced, and told them they shouldn’t talk like that about his mother and father. That took the wind out of their sails.

Every night before he went to sleep, Tommy prayed that Uncle Arthur would go away and never come back again. But he always did. He seemed to stop at the house late every night, and sometimes Tommy didn’t hear him leave until it was almost time to get up for school. What they found to talk about all night, he had no idea, though he knew that Uncle Arthur had a bed made up in the spare room, so that he could sleep there if he wanted. Even when Uncle Arthur wasn’t around, Tommy’s mother seemed distant and distracted, and she lost her patience with him very quickly.

One thing Tommy noticed within a few weeks of Uncle Arthur’s visits to the new house was that his father’s photograph – the one in full uniform he had been so proud of – went mysteriously missing from the mantelpiece. He asked his mother about it, but all she said was that it was time to move on and leave her widow’s weeds behind. Sometimes he thought he would never understand the things grown-ups said.

WHEN TOMMY GOT back to his room at the boardinghouse, he took the badge out of his pocket and held it in his palm. Yes, he could feel his father’s power in it. Then he took out the creased newspaper cutting he always carried with him and read it for the hundredth time:

Police Constable Shot Dead

Biggest Haul Since the Great Train Robbery, Authorities Say

A police constable accompanying a van carrying more than one million pounds was shot dead yesterday in a daring broad-daylight raid on the A226 outside Swanscombe. PC Brian Burford was on special assignment at the time. The robbers fled the scene, and police are interested in talking to anyone who might have seen a blue Vauxhall Victor in the general area that day. Since the Great Train Robbery on 8 August, 1963, police officers have routinely accompanied large amounts of cash…

Tommy knew the whole thing by heart, of course, about the police looking for five men and thinking it must have been an inside job, but he always read the end over and over again: “PC Burford leaves behind a wife and a young son.” Leaves behind. They made it sound as if it were his father’s fault, when he had just been doing his job. “‘It is one of the saddest burdens of the badge of office to break the news that a police officer has been killed in the line of duty,’ said Deputy Chief Constable Graham Brown. ‘Thank God this burden remains such a rarity in our country.’”

Tommy fingered his badge again. Burden of the badge of office. Well, he knew what that felt like now. He made sure no one was around and went to the toilet. There, he took some toilet paper, wet it under the tap, and used it to clean off his badge, drying it carefully with a towel. There were still a few grains of sand caught in the pattern of lines that radiated outward, and it looked as if it were tarnished a bit around the edges. He decided that he needed some sort of wallet to keep it in, and he had enough pocket money to buy one. Uncle Arthur was still at the pier, and his mother was having a lie-down, having “caught too much sun,” so he told her he was going for a walk and headed for the shops.

TOMMY WENT INTO the first gift shop he saw and found a plastic wallet just the right size. He could keep his badge safe in there, and when he opened it, people would be able to see it. That would be important if he had to make an arrest or take someone in for questioning. He counted out the coins and paid the shopkeeper, then put the wallet in his back pocket and walked outside. The shop next door had racks of used paperback books outside. Uncle Arthur didn’t approve of used books – “Never know where they’ve been” – but Tommy didn’t care about that. He had become good at hiding things. He bought The Saint in New York, which he hadn’t read yet and had been looking for for ages.

The sun was still shining, so Tommy crossed over to the broad promenade that ran beside the sands and the sea. There was a lot of traffic on the front, and he had to be careful. His mother would have gone spare if she had known he hadn’t looked for a zebra crossing but had dodged between the cars. Someone honked a horn at him. He thought of flashing his badge but decided against it. He would use it only when he really had to.

He walked along the prom, letting his hand trail on the warm metal railing. He liked to watch the waves roll in and to listen to them as they broke on the shore. There were still hundreds of people on the beach, some of them braving the sea, most just sitting in deck chairs-the men in shirtsleeves and braces reading newspapers, knotted hankies covering their heads; the women sleeping, wearing floppy hats with the brims shading their faces. Children screamed and jumped, made elaborate sand castles. A humpbacked man led the donkeys slowly along their marked track, excited riders whooping as they rode, pretending to be cowboys.

Then Tommy saw Uncle Arthur and froze.

HE WAS WEARING his dark-blue trousers and matching blazer with the gold buttons, a small straw hat perched on his head. He needs a haircut, Tommy thought, looking at where the strands of dark hair curled out from under the straw. It wasn’t as if he were young enough to wear his hair long like the Beatles. He was probably at least as old as Tommy’s mother. As Uncle Arthur walked along with the crowds, he looked around furtively, licking his lips from time to time, and Tommy hardly even needed the magic of his badge to know that he was up to something. Tommy leaned over the railing and looked out to sea, where a distant tanker trailed smoke, and waited until Uncle Arthur had passed by. As he did so, Tommy slipped his hand into his pocket and fingered the wallet that held his badge, feeling its power.

He could see Uncle Arthur’s straw hat easily enough as he followed him through the crowds along the prom toward the Central Pier. Luckily, there were plenty of people walking in both directions, and there was no way Uncle Arthur could spot Tommy, even if he turned around suddenly. It was as if the badge had even given him extra power to be invisible.

Shortly before Chapel Street, Uncle Arthur checked the traffic and dashed across the road. Tommy was near some lights, and luckily they turned red, so he was able to keep up. There were just as many people on the other side because of all the shops and bingo halls and amusement arcades, so it was easy to slip unseen into the crowds again.

The problems started when Uncle Arthur got into the backstreets, where there weren’t as many people. He didn’t look behind him, so Tommy thought he would probably be okay, but he kept his distance and stopped every now and then to look in a shop window. Soon, though, there were no shops except for the occasional newsagent’s and bookie’s, with maybe a café or a run-down pub on a street corner. Tommy started to get increasingly worried that he would be seen. What would Uncle Arthur do then? It didn’t bear thinking about. He put his hand in his pocket and fingered the badge. It gave him courage. Occasionally, he crossed the street and followed from the other side. There were still a few people, including families with children carrying buckets and spades, heading for the beach, so he didn’t stick out like a sore thumb.

Finally, just when Tommy thought he would have to give up because the streets were getting too narrow and empty, Uncle Arthur disappeared into a pub called the Golden Trumpet. That was an unforeseen development. Tommy was too young to enter a pub, and even if he did, he would certainly be noticed. He looked at the James Bond wristwatch he had got for his thirteenth birthday. It was quarter to three. The pubs closed for the afternoon at three. That wasn’t too long to wait. He walked up to the front and tried to glance in the windows, but they were covered with smoked glass, so he couldn’t see a thing.

There was a small café about twenty yards down the street, from which he could easily keep an eye on the pub door. Tommy went in and ordered a glass of milk and a sticky bun, which he took over to the table near the window, and watched the pub as he drank and ate. A few seedy-looking people came and went, but there was no sign of Uncle Arthur. Finally, at about ten past three, out he came with two other men. They stood in the street, talking, faces close together, standing back and laughing when anyone else walked past, as if they were telling a joke. Then, as if at a prearranged signal, they all walked off in different directions. Tommy didn’t think he needed to follow Uncle Arthur anymore, as he was clearly heading back in the direction of the boardinghouse. And he was carrying a small holdall that he hadn’t had with him before he went into the pub.

“WHERE DO YOU think you’ve been?”

Tommy’s mother was sitting in the lounge when he got back to the boardinghouse. Uncle Arthur was with her, reading the afternoon paper. He didn’t look up.

“Just walking,” said Tommy.

“Where?”

“Along the front.” Tommy was terrified that Uncle Arthur might have seen him and told his mother, and that she was trying to catch him out in a lie.

“I’ve told you not to go near the sea when I’m not with you,” she said.

“I didn’t go near the sea,” Tommy said, relieved. “All the time I was on the prom, I was behind the railing.”

“Are you certain?”

“Yes, Mummy. Honest. Cross my heart.” At least he could swear to that without fear of hellfire and damnation. When he had been on the prom, he had been behind the railing at the top of the high seawall, far away from the sea.

“All right, then,” she said. “Mrs. Newbiggin will be serving dinner soon, so go up and wash your hands like a good boy. Your uncle Arthur had a nice win on the horses this afternoon, so we’ll be going out to the Tower Ballroom to celebrate after. You’ll be all right here on your own, reading or watching television, won’t you?”

Tommy said he would be all right alone. But it wasn’t watching television that he had in mind, or reading The Saint in New York.

THE BOARDINGHOUSE WAS quiet after dinner. When they had cleared the table, Mrs. Newbiggin and her husband disappeared into their own living quarters, most of the younger guests went out, and only the two old women who were always there sat in the lounge, knitting and watching television. Tommy went up to his room and lay on his bed, reading, until he was certain his mother and Uncle Arthur hadn’t forgotten something they would have to come back for, then he snapped into action.

Ever since he had been little, he’d had a knack for opening locks, and the one on Uncle Arthur’s door gave little resistance. In fact, the same key that opened his own door opened Uncle Arthur’s. He wondered if the other guests knew it was that easy. Once he stood on the threshold, he’d a moment of fear, but he touched the badge in his trouser pocket for luck and went inside, closing the door softly behind him.

Uncle Arthur’s room was a mirror image of his own, with a tall wardrobe, single bed, chair, chest of drawers, and small washstand and towel. The flower-patterned wallpaper was peeling off at a damp patch where it met the ceiling, and Tommy could see the silhouettes of dead flies in the inverted lamp shade. The wooden bed frame was scratched, and the pink candlewick bedspread had a dark stain near the bottom. The ashtray on the bedside table was overflowing with crushed-out filter-tipped cigarettes. The narrow window, which looked out on the Newbiggins’ backyard, where the dustbins and the outhouse were, was covered in grime and cobwebs. It was open about an inch, and the net curtains fluttered in the breeze.

First, Tommy looked under the bed. He found nothing there but dust and an old sock. Next, he went through the chest of drawers, which contained only Uncle Arthur’s clean underwear, a shaving kit, aspirin, and some items he didn’t recognize. He assumed they were grown-ups’ things. The top of the wardrobe, for which Tommy had to enlist the aid of the rickety chair, proved to be a waste of time too. The only place remaining was inside the wardrobe itself. The key was missing, but it was even easier to open a wardrobe than a door. Uncle Arthur’s shirts, trousers, and jackets hung from the rail, and below them was his open suitcase, containing a few pairs of dirty socks and underpants. No holdall.

Just before he closed the wardrobe door, Tommy had an idea and lifted up the suitcase. Underneath it lay the holdall.

He reached in, pulled it out, and put it on the bed. It was a little heavy, but it didn’t make any noise when he moved it. There was no lock, and the zipper slid open smoothly when he pulled the tab. At first, he couldn’t see what was inside, then he noticed something wrapped in brown paper. He lifted it out and opened it carefully. Inside was a gun. Tommy didn’t know what kind of gun, but it was heavier than any cap gun he had ever owned, so he assumed it was a real one. He was careful not to touch it. He knew all about fingerprints. He wrapped it up and put it back. Then he noticed that it was lying on a bed of what he had thought was paper, but when he reached in and pulled out a wad, he saw it was money. Five-pound notes. He didn’t know how much there was, and he wasn’t going to count it. He had discovered enough for one evening. Carefully, he put everything back as it was. What he had to work out next was what he was going to do about it.

THAT NIGHT, AS Tommy lay in bed unable to sleep, he heard hushed voices in his mother’s room. He didn’t like to eavesdrop on her, but given what he had just found in Uncle Arthur’s room, he felt he had to.

It was almost impossible to hear what they were saying, and he managed to catch only a few fragments.

“Can’t… money here… wait,” he heard Uncle Arthur say, and missed the next bit. Then he heard what sounded like “Year… Jigger says Brazil,” and after a pause, “… the kid?” Next, his mother’s voice said, “… grandparents.” He missed what Uncle Arthur said next but distinctly heard his mother say, “… have to, won’t they?”

Tommy wondered what they meant. Was Uncle Arthur planning a robbery or had he already committed one? He certainly had a lot of money. Tommy remembered the three men talking outside the pub. One of them must have given Uncle Arthur the holdall. What for? Did it represent the proceeds or the means? Were Uncle Arthur and his mother going to run away to Brazil and leave him with his grandparents? He didn’t believe she would do that.

The bedsprings creaked, and he thought he heard a muffled cry from the next room. His mother obviously couldn’t sleep. Was she crying about his father? Then, much later, when he was finally falling asleep himself, he heard her door close and footsteps pass by his room, as if someone were walking on tiptoe.

THE NEXT DAY at breakfast, his mother and Uncle Arthur didn’t have very much to say. Both of them looked tired, and his mother had applied an extra bit of makeup to try to hide the dark pouches under her eyes. Uncle Arthur’s hair stuck up in places, and he needed a shave. The two old ladies looked at them sternly and clucked.

“Stupid old bags,” muttered Uncle Arthur.

“Now, now,” said Tommy’s mother. “Be nice, Arthur. Don’t draw attention to yourself.”

The conversation he had overheard last night still worried Tommy as he ate his bacon and eggs. They had definitely mentioned the money. Was his mother about to get involved in something criminal? Was it Uncle Arthur who was going to involve her? If that was so, he had to stop it before it happened, or she would go to jail. The money and the gun were in Uncle Arthur’s room, after all, and his mother could deny that she knew anything about them. Tommy had heard his mother insisting before they came away that they would each have a room. Uncle Arthur hadn’t liked the idea because it would cost more money, but he had no choice. Tommy knew what it was like when his mother had made up her mind.

The bag and gun would have Uncle Arthur’s fingerprints all over them. Tommy was certain Uncle Arthur must have handled the bag and the items in it after he had picked them up at the pub, if only to check that everything was there. But his mother would have had no reason to touch them or even see them, and Tommy himself had been careful when he lifted and opened the bag.

“Pass the sauce,” said Uncle Arthur. “What are we doing today?”

Tommy passed the HP Sauce. “Why don’t we go up the Tower?” Tommy said.

“I don’t like heights,” said Uncle Arthur.

“I’ll go by myself, then.”

“No, you won’t,” said his mother, who seemed as concerned about heights as she was about water.

“Well, what can we do, then?” Tommy asked. “I don’t mind just looking at the shops by myself.”

“Like a bloody woman, you are, with your shops,” said Uncle Arthur.

Tommy had meant bookshops and record shops. He was still looking for a used copy of Dr. No and hoping that the new Beatles single “Help!” would be released any day now, even though he would have to wait until he got home to listen to it. But he wasn’t planning on going to the shops, anyway, so there was no sense in making an issue of it. “I might go to the Pleasure Beach as well,” he said, looking at Uncle Arthur. “Can you give me some money to go on the rides?”

Uncle Arthur looked as if he were going to say no, then he sighed, swore, and dug his hand in his pocket. He gave Tommy two ten-shilling notes, which was a lot of money. He could buy Dr. No and “Help!” and go on rides with that much, and still have change for an ice cream, but he wasn’t sure that he should spend it, because he didn’t know where it had come from. “Cor,” he said. “Thanks, Arthur.”

“It’s Uncle Arthur to you,” said his mother.

“Yeah, remember that,” said Uncle Arthur. “Show a bit of respect for your elders and betters. And don’t spend it all on candy floss and toffee apples.”

“What about you?” Tommy asked. “Where are you going?”

“Dunno,” said Uncle Arthur. “You, Maddy?”

“You know I hate being called that,” his mother said. Her name, Tommy knew, was Madeleine, and she didn’t like it being shortened.

“Sorry,” said Uncle Arthur with a cheeky grin.

“Do you know, I wouldn’t mind taking the tram all the way along the seafront to the end of the line and back,” she said, then giggled. “Isn’t that silly?”

“Not at all,” said Uncle Arthur. “That sounds like a lot of fun. Give me a few minutes. I’ve just got to get a shave first.”

“And comb your hair,” said Tommy’s mother.

“Now, don’t be a nag,” said Uncle Arthur, wagging his finger. “Maybe we’ll see if we can call in at one of them there travel agents too, while we’re out.”

“Arthur!” Tommy’s mother looked alarmed.

“What? Oh, don’t worry.” He got up and tousled Tommy’s hair. “I’m off for a shave, then. You’ll have to do that yourself one day, you know,” he said, rubbing his dark stubble against Tommy’s cheek.

Tommy pulled away. “I know,” he said. “Can I go now? I’ve finished my breakfast.”

“We’ll all go,” said his mother. And they went up to their rooms. Tommy took a handkerchief from his little suitcase and put it in his pocket, because he really was starting to sniffle a bit now, made sure he had his badge and the money Uncle Arthur had given him, then went back into the corridor. Uncle Arthur was standing there, waiting and whistling, freshly shaven, hair still sticking up. For a moment, Tommy felt a shiver of fear ripple up his spine. Had Uncle Arthur realized that someone had been in his room and rummaged through his stuff, found the money and the gun?

Uncle Arthur grinned. “Women,” he said, gesturing with his thumb toward Tommy’s mother’s door. “One day you’ll know all about them.”

“Sure. One day I’ll know everything,” muttered Tommy. He pulled his handkerchief from his pocket to blow his nose, and it snagged on the plastic wallet, sending his badge flying to the floor.

“What’s this, then?” said Uncle Arthur, bending down to pick it up.

“Give me it back!” said Tommy, panicking, reaching out for the wallet.

But Uncle Arthur raised his arm high, out of Tommy’s reach. “I said, what have we got here?”

“It’s nothing,” Tommy said. “It’s mine. Give it to me.”

“Mind your manners.”

“Please.”

Uncle Arthur opened the wallet, looked at the badge, and looked at Tommy. “A police badge,” he said. “Like father, like son, eh? Is that it?”

“I told you it was mine,” Tommy said, desperately snatching. “You leave it alone.”

But Uncle Arthur had pulled the badge out of its transparent-plastic covering. “It’s not real, you know,” he said.

“Yes, it is,” Tommy said. “Give us it back.”

“It’s made of plastic,” said Uncle Arthur. “Where did you get it?”

“I found it. On the beach. Give it to me.”

“I told you, it’s just plastic,” said Uncle Arthur. And to prove his point, he dropped the badge on the floor and stepped on it. The badge splintered under his foot. “See?”

At that moment, Tommy’s mother came out of her room, ready to go. “What’s happening?” she said, seeing Tommy practically in tears.

“Nothing,” said Uncle Arthur, stepping toward the stairs. He gave Tommy a warning look. “Is there, lad? Let’s go, love. Our carriage awaits.” He laughed.

Tommy’s mother gave a nervous giggle, then bent and pecked Tommy on the cheek. He felt her soft hair touch his face and smelled her perfume. It made him feel dizzy. He held back his tears. “You’ll be all right, son?” She hadn’t seen the splintered badge, and he didn’t want her to. It might bring back too many painful memories for her.

He nodded. “You go,” he said. “Have a good time.”

“See you later.” His mother gave a little wave and tripped down the stairs after Uncle Arthur. Tommy looked down at the floor. The badge was in four pieces on the lino. He bent and carefully picked them up. Maybe he could mend it, stick it together somehow, but it would never be the same. This was a bad sign. With tears in his eyes, he put the pieces back in the plastic wallet, returned it to his pocket, and followed his mother and Uncle Arthur outside to make sure they got on the tram before he went to do what he had to do.

“YOU READY YET, Tommy?”

“Just a minute, Phil,” Detective Chief Inspector Thomas Burford shouted over his shoulder at DI Craven. He was walking on the beach – the hard, wet sand where the waves licked in and almost washed over his shoes – and DI Craven, his designated driver, was waiting patiently on the prom. Tommy’s stomach was churning, the way it always did before a big event, and today, 13 July, 2006, he was about to receive a Police Bravery Award.

If it had been one of his men, he would have called it folly, not bravery. He had thrown himself at a man holding a hostage at gunpoint, convinced in his bones, in his every instinct, that he could disarm the man before he hurt the hostage. He had succeeded, receiving for his troubles only a flesh wound on his shoulder and a ringing in his ears that lasted three days. And the bravery award. At his rank, he shouldn’t even have been at the hostage-taking scene – he should have been in a cubicle, catching up on paperwork or giving orders over the police radio – but paperwork had always bored him, and he sought out excitement whenever he had the chance. Now he walked with the salt spray blowing through his hair, trying to control his churning bowels just because he had to stand up in front of a crowd and say a few words.

Tommy did what he usually did on such occasions and took the old plastic wallet out of his pocket as he stood and faced the gray waves. The wallet was cracked and faded with time, and there was a tear reaching almost halfway up the central crease. Inside, behind the transparent cover, was a police badge made out of plastic. It had been broken once and was stuck together with glue and Sellotape. Most of the silver had worn off over the years, and it was now black in places. The crown and cross had broken off the top, but the words were still clearly visible in the central circle: METROPOLITAN POLICE curved around ER. Elizabeth Regina. “Our queen,” as his father had once said so proudly.

In the opposite side of the wallet was a yellowed newspaper clipping from July 1965, forty-one years ago. It flapped in the breeze, and Tommy made sure he held on to it tightly as he read the familiar words:

Schoolboy Foils Robbers

A thirteen-year-old schoolboy’s sense of honor and duty led to the arrest of Arthur Leslie Marsden in the murder of PC Brian Burford during the course of a payroll robbery last August. Five other men and one woman were also arrested and charged in the swoop, based on evidence and information given by the boy at a Blackpool police station. Also arrested were Madeleine Burford, widow of the deceased constable, named as Marsden’s lover and source of inside information; Len Fraser, driver of the getaway car; John Jarrow…

Tommy knew it by heart, all the names, all the details. He also remembered the day he had walked into the police station, showed his badge to the officer at the front desk, and told him all about the contents of Uncle Arthur’s holdall. It had taken a while, a bit of explaining, but in the end the desk sergeant had let him in, and the plainclothes detectives had shown a great deal of interest in what he had to say. They accompanied him to the boardinghouse and found the holdall in its hiding place. After that, they soon established that the gun was the same one used to shoot his father. The gang had been lying low, waiting for the heat to die down before daring to use any large quantities of the money – a year, they had agreed – and they had been too stupid to get rid of the gun. The only fingerprints on it were Uncle Arthur’s, and the five hundred pounds it was resting on was just a little spending money to be going on with.

The one thing the newspaper article didn’t report was that the “boy” was Tommy Burford, only son of Brian and Madeleine Burford. That came out later, of course, at the trial, but at the time, the authorities had done everything within their power to keep his name out of it. Every time he read the story over again, Tommy’s heart broke just a little more. Throwing himself at gunmen, tackling gangs armed with hammers and chains, and challenging rich and powerful criminals never came close to making the pain go away; it took the edge off for only a short while, until the adrenaline wore off.

His mother. Christ, he had never known. Never even suspected. She had been only twenty-nine at the time, for crying out loud, not much more than a girl herself, married too young to a man she didn’t love – for the sake of their forthcoming child – and bored with her life. She wanted romance and all the nice things his father couldn’t give her on a policeman’s wage, the life she saw portrayed on posters, in magazines, at the pictures, and on television, and Arthur Marsden had walked into her life and offered them all, for a price.

Of course Tommy’s father had talked about his job. He had been excited about being chosen for the special assignment and had told both his wife and his son all about it. How was Tommy to know that his mother had passed on the information to Marsden, who was already her lover, and that he and his gang had done the rest? Tommy knew he had seen her with Uncle Arthur before his father’s death, and he wished he had said something. Too late now.

Whether the murder of Tommy’s father had ever been part of the master plan or was simply an unforeseen necessity, nobody ever found out. Uncle Arthur and Tommy’s mother never admitted anything at the trial. But Tommy remembered the look his mother gave him that day when he came back to the Newbiggins’ boardinghouse with the two plainclothes policemen. She came out of the lounge as they entered the hall, and it was as if she knew immediately what had happened, that it was all over. She gave Tommy a look of such deep and infinite sadness, loss, and defeat that he knew he would take it with him to his grave.

“Tom, we’d better hurry up or we’ll be late!” called DI Craven from the prom.

“Coming,” said Tom. He folded up the newspaper clipping and put it away. Then, brushing his hands across his eyes, which had started watering in the salt wind, he turned away from the sea and walked toward the waiting car, thinking how right they had all been back then, when they said he was young for his age and knew nothing about girls.