Free Mr. Love and Justice by Colin MacInnes Page A

it’s another matter.’
    ‘Yes, sir. And in here?’
    The Detective-Sergeant rose and said, ‘Well, Constable,that depends. Personally, I don’t happen to be a sadist and never do it unless it’s clearly necessary to get certain results. Others do, I know, just for the heck of it: but not me.’
    ‘No, sir.’
    ‘If you do do it,’ the officer continued, ‘the first thing to remember is not to mark them: not to hit them where it shows next day in daylight. Never forget: they’ve got to be produced in court in twenty-four hours – or forty-eight, of course, if the day of arrest happens to be a Saturday.’
    ‘And if you do happen to mark them, sir?’
    ‘You say they went berserk and had to be restrained. Of course, you know – sometimes they do: I could show you a scar or two to prove it.’
    ‘But, sir. If you bash them – don’t they tell the magistrate?’
    ‘Sometimes … It has been known … I’ve not met with one magistrate yet, though, who’s believed it … Or even if they do, well, so long as they think the charge you’ve made against the prisoner’s quite authentic it doesn’t seem to worry them unduly … As for juries, if a prisoner pleads violence or a forced confession, in my experience all it does is tell against him in the verdict.’
    ‘I see, sir.’
    ‘Don’t rely on that, though, Constable. There’s no point at all in using force just for the sake of it, unless it serves a purpose. Because – and you might as well remember this if you possibly can – your real battle isn’t with the criminal but with the courts. It’s only there thatyou can get him his conviction. You’ve got counsel up against you, and solicitors, and the witnesses for the defence, and juries and magistrates and judges – and the press, please don’t forget those little parasites. They’ve all got to be defeated or convinced before your man gets his complimentary ticket for a seat in Brixton.’
    ‘I’ll remember, sir.’
    ‘I do hope so. In the Force, Constable, the greatest asset that a man can have, in my opinion, isn’t all the ones you read so much about but purely and simply a sense of order : of thoroughly methodical procedure. If you train yourself to be methodical and avoid confusion like the plague, then you may end up Chief Constable – just think of that! Not, on your present showing, that it’s very likely,’ he added, turning out the light and opening the office door.

MR LOVE
    A chief difficulty in his new role, Frankie found, was what to do with the twenty-four hours of the day. At sea, this never had been a problem: even leisure, on board ship, seems to be purposeful: a relaxation from the tasks behind, a preparation for those ahead – time never seemed to hang upon a seaman’s hands. Even to be unemployed was, in a sense, a full-time occupation: the hours it took to achieve the feat of the single minute’s signing on at the Labour; the problems of where to sleep and how to eat, and even the sterile round in search of jobs.
    But now his timetable except at certain immutable, vital points was vague in the extreme. He had to be home in his girl’s new flat at Kilburn for the most important moment of their day – or night-and-day, for Frankie was finding the two radically divided sectionswere merging into one. This was the moment when, dismissing the last visitor, his girl produced the old black bag (to which in spite of growing prosperity she sentimentally clung) and shook its contents out upon the kitchen table. This was the hour of reckoning, the essential confrontation. Frankie must know exactly what she earned – if she’d hid as much as a halfpenny their relationship would lose its fundamental basis. And she must know that he knew: what he then did with the money seemed of less importance to her, for she was quite ungrasping and, so long as she had what was necessary for essential housekeeping and personal adornment, she left the disposition of the funds entirely to