Policeman's Progress Read Online Free

about to open a new and bigger nightclub at Middlesbrough.
    Jackie tore his mind from thoughts of Laura’s body. ‘I’ll get Geordie myself – this time, I don’t need your help. He came from the gutter and that’s where he’ll damn well end up. I’d have given him the push tonight, only you know as well as I do that good croupiers are hard to come by – and Geordie is a good one, when he plays it straight.’
    Hansen considered this for a moment. ‘If his pay-in is all right, why are you so dead against him? He can’t be cheating us, if he’s getting the normal rake-off for the house.’
    Jackie’s bad humour began to gather again. ‘I just got a hunch! He may not be fiddling us direct, but somehow he’s skinning the mugs to his own advantage.’ He prodded the air with a finger the size of a sausage. ‘If we get, say sixty per cent of the cash the mugs bring in with them, then they share the other forty between them … that’s OK. But if another ten per cent is being switched into Geordie’s pocket, that’s bad business for us.’
    â€˜But to do that, he’d have to have a partner hidden amongst the patrons.’ Hansen was too proper to use the word ‘mugs’.
    Jackie nodded. ‘S’right! … and when I catch him, I’ll wrap his face around these.’ He held up a handful of great knuckles. ‘And the other hand will be for Geordie. If he’s got any sense, he’ll drop any funny business right now.’ He took another mouthful of neat whiskey. ‘But that’s not all – I think the little swine is after my Laura.’
    Thor’s deadpan expression stayed put, while he faced Jackie, but as he turned to put down his glass, a fleeting smile crossed his face.
    â€˜I was in her flat a week last Friday,’ went on the club owner. ‘There was an ashtray half full of fag ends. You know she never smokes, says it’s bad for her voice.’
    Thor kept his voice level, but unconsciously stubbed out his own half-finished cigarette.
    â€˜Nothing in that, for heaven’s sake.’
    Stott prowled around the room.
    â€˜Suppose not – but it never happened before. For a couple of months past, she’s been coming the iceberg with me. If we got together a couple of nights a week, I was lucky. This last fortnight, I haven’t had so much as a tickle … she’s always got some tale about being tired or ill or going out or summat!’
    â€˜What’s this got to do with Geordie Armstrong?’
    Jackie’s face blackened like a thundercloud.
    â€˜Joe Blunt says he’s heard tales around the pubs … Geordie hinting – boasting like – that he’s shacked up with some fabulous bird. In the boozer last night Joe heard him tell someone that he’d be surprised if I knew who it was.’
    Thor shrugged. ‘You can’t believe a word Joe says – apart from being punch-drunk, he’d lie his head off to get Geordie into trouble.’
    Stott shook his head angrily.
    â€˜I still got a hunch, you know.’ His accent thickened as he got excited and Hansen was hard pressed to understand him at times. ‘Laura’s been my bird over two years now. She hadn’t a bean when I gave her this singing job – now she’s got a car, her own flat, as much cash as she wants. Perhaps I aren’t Richard Burton and Gregory Peck rolled into one, but she flaming well owes me something.’
    A moment later, the woman in question appeared again. She had removed the signs of battle and only a faint flush on one cheek showed where her master had hit her.
    Jackie looked at her and thought that she was the sexiest dish he had ever seen. Hansen looked at her and thought she was the most desirable woman he had ever met. Four years younger than his own thirty-two, she was beautiful, though a certain hardness spoilt her face. Born