Harry Oldham is writing a novel based on his criminal and sordid past. To do so, he has returned to live at Park Hill, where he grew up, and the place that he once left behind. That was then and this is now, in which the old world collides with the new. (Parts 1 to 23 are available to read in the menu)

Perfectly Hard and Glamorous – Part 24

April 2025

I swear there were tears in Tom’s eyes when he finished reading the closing chapter of my story. The reasons were unclear. Perhaps he believed I had been dealt a cruel hand. Perhaps he had come to realise that Jack—his father—had played a part in my abrupt departure from family and closest friends. And then there was Paolo’s suicide, and the shameful way the police had treated us.

I was young, and everything had become intolerable. The only option had been to nick a car and head for London, where I was unknown and made to feel thoroughly unwelcome. But youth is resilient, and even though it took me nearly forty years, I climbed out of the gutter and—dare I say it—became almost respectable.

I knew, of course, that I had played a part in my own downfall.

But this was now, and something had shifted the moment Tom revealed who his father was. We had become unlikely lovers—the ageing novelist and the young drug dealer. It pulled the past sharply into the present, and with it came complications.

The most obvious issue was the age difference. Tom had gate-crashed my world and taken root within it. The intrusion had been deliberate, set in motion by his father, Jack. Yet Tom had stayed; a compelling glimpse into a generation with which I had no real connection. More than anything, I had watched him change—from a surly young man into someone capable of warmth and compassion—and that, to me, had been irresistible, though I had no right to expect anything at all.

There was also Jack, whose hand I had last shaken forty years earlier, when my fate had been sealed. Those final words—“Seeing your boyfriend?” He had meant Paolo, whose own destiny was unfolding elsewhere, and without me. At the time, I had taken Jack’s question as sarcasm, but years later, when time had dulled the memory, I began to hear it differently; perhaps he had been genuinely interested.

The question still lingered.

I imagined Jack asking it again: “Seeing your boyfriend?” Only now he was no longer referring to Paolo, but to his own son—and this time, I heard it as a threat.

But there was another complexity that I hadn’t expected. 

A letter arrived on April Fool’s Day, forwarded by my publisher. It promised answers to past events.

One sunny morning, a few days later, I found a dilapidated bench overlooking the city centre. I waited until he arrived and sat beside me. He was a very old man now, moving only with difficulty, supported by a walking stick. He reminded me of someone from long ago. “If you’re not with the Mooney’s, then who are you with? You’re not with the Park lads—I’ve never seen you before.” “We’re the Geisha Boys,” Jack had explained.

We did not look at one another but stared out at the view.

“I did a lot of business here. Do you remember this bench, Harry? It’s where you and Paolo first met.” The voice was frail, the muscles long since weakened.

“How was Torremolinos?” I asked.

“I don’t remember,” Frank Smith replied. “I drank too much, smoked too much, and the wife would’ve read the riot act afterwards. Gone now, bless her. She was the only one who could keep me in line.”

He turned to me and held out a conciliatory hand.

“I thought you might punch me,” he said. “But I told myself, if you did, it would probably kill me.”

I shook his hand. More than that, I offered him a cigarette, which he accepted.

“We’ve spent a lot of time shaking hands and sharing cigarettes—but I think this is a first for us, Harry. I came here thinking I might give you a hard time, for old times’ sake, but I realised it was only in my head. I don’t have the strength for that anymore. I’m ninety-two now.”

“I got your letter.”

“My daughter has a way with words. Not like me—I’d have been dead before I finished it. She didn’t want to send it. Thought I was too old to be dredging up the past.”

Frank began to cough, and I hoped it wouldn’t take him before he had the chance to explain. When it passed, he took another drag on the cigarette.

“We left things badly, Harry. But I watched from a distance. I had connections in the Met—they kept me informed. There were a few scrapes, as you know, but my boys saw to it.”

I thought back to the arrests. Three for soliciting, twice for violence, once for shoplifting. I had always assumed the London coppers had gone easy on me.

“It worked, Harry,” he went on. “I knew you’d come good in the end. You became a successful writer. That eased my conscience. And here we are.”

“It’s only possible to ease a conscience if you had one to begin with.”

“I’m going to tell you a few things, and I want you to listen. Will you let me?”

I nodded.

“Sheffield was a bad place in the eighties. Crime, vice—the police were struggling to keep a lid on it. We were under pressure to get results, whatever it took. Some of us became… unorthodox. But we got results, and that kept the ‘pips and crown’ happy.

I was tasked with clearing out criminal gangs who thought they could make money exploiting a minority—the gays. We had to infiltrate them, and the best way was to pose as bent coppers who could help them. I’ll admit, I took my share of hush money along the way.

“We started with the weakest gang—that’s where you came in. The others thought they were paying me to remove the competition. What they didn’t know was that I’d use the same tactic on them. And it worked. There were smaller players too—groups who saw what happened and abandoned their plans. If I’d failed, Harry, I suspect you might have tried your hand as a small-time operator yourself.”

So far, Frank had told me nothing I didn’t already know.

“You might have wondered how you got pulled into it. There was a night I came to your flat—we thought you’d set fire to Manor Library. You’d just had a bath, and I did something small, just to make a point. I ran a finger down your chest. I expected you to live up to your reputation and kick off. But you didn’t. That made me think. Had I stumbled onto something about Harry Oldham that he didn’t yet know himself?

“I already had Paolo in my pocket—that was easy. He was scared out of his wits, would have done anything. What I needed was someone who looked the part and could handle himself. That was you, Harry. My instincts were right, though I was surprised how naturally you took to it—not least, becoming involved with Paolo.

“The rest, as they say, is history. I made Inspector off the back of it.”

Frank had mentioned Paolo, and even now, after all these years, it still hurt.

“I never saw Paolo again, Frank. And I never got the chance to say goodbye.”

“You mentioned having a conscience. But I must ask you the same. Did you have a conscience, Harry? You were happy enough to take the money. It only stopped when Billy Mason outed you.”

“Maybe I only found my conscience afterwards.”

“At the time, I thought I was doing the right thing. And, if I’m honest, I hated queers—and then the AIDS crisis began, and I hated them even more. But I changed. And the two people who changed me were Paolo and you.”

“What do you mean, Frank?”

“I liked Paolo. Sweet little Paolo, always polite. I never had any intention of outing him to his parents. I liked you too, Harry—rough and ready. If I kept you in line, everything held together. And you were different from the others. There was a spectrum: Andy, a complete head case; Jack, who wanted to be the same but didn’t have it in him; and you, who didn’t have the faintest idea what you wanted to be. I never intended to out you either. But I needed you both to believe that I could.

“And don’t think I didn’t have regrets. I had plenty. Things went downhill quickly. I hadn’t realised that DC Ian Thornhill was such a bastard. He hated queers even more than I did—and he had it in for you, Harry. He couldn’t understand why I was trying to protect you. To him, you were scum who deserved locking up. I came back from holiday to find you’d been arrested and charged. The work I had to do to sort that out…”

“And Paolo’s death made everything worse. Questions were asked—why he’d taken his own life. I was one of them.

“The gaffers got involved as well. The ringleaders managed to slip away, leaving their lackeys to take the fall. There were bigger names mixed up in it all—judges, solicitors, doctors, even coppers. Anyone with something to hide. What they were doing was illegal, but they were never charged. They knew the right people, high up in the force. I questioned it, and do you know what the gaffers said? Keep quiet, Frank, and we’ll make sure you’re looked after. The weight of it landed on ordinary blokes looking for a cheap thrill. The publicity ruined most of them.

“And then everything changed after Hillsborough. New bosses came in, looking for scapegoats. Everything had to be squeaky clean. They started reopening old cases—anything where the police might be held accountable. It got uncomfortable. I was questioned about Paolo, about you, about my role in it all. What I’d done was illegal too—and there was no one left to protect me.”

“What happened?”

“I left the force. And I’ve been looking over my shoulder ever since, expecting a knock at the door.”

Frank’s revelations showed me a side of him I had never imagined. Not once had I thought him capable of regret. It changed something between us—but it did not change what had happened. And once again, I knew I had to accept my own share of the blame.

Frank had not finished.

“I’ve read all your books, Harry. Had to, didn’t I? In a way, it gave me some satisfaction knowing you’d made something of yourself.”

“There’s something you should know,” I told him. “The next book is finished. It’s about the Geisha Boys—Andy, Jack, Paolo, me… and you, Frank. And you don’t come out of it well.”

He smiled.

“I’m not going to ask you to leave me out. What’s done is done. Go ahead—publish it. But there are a few things I need to say first.”

Frank gripped my arm.

“Do you know what happened to Andy and Jack?”

“I’ve met Jack’s son,” I said. “Tom. It’s a long story. I know Jack was asking questions about me, but he doesn’t know anything about Andy.”

“Things changed after you left for London,” Frank went on. “The case was closed as far as the exploitation went, but there was another side to it. Andy and Jack thought they could carry on without you… but it didn’t work out that way.

“I knew Andy was trouble, but you pushed him over the edge. Everything started to unravel. He began operating on his own—serious stuff: drugs, armed robbery, the lot. Jack wanted no part of it.

“But the deeper Andy got, the more he attracted attention from people bigger and smarter than him. All we had to do was wait. It ended badly, a few years later. Beaten to death at a flat in Nottingham. His body wasn’t found for weeks. I won’t pretend I was sorry.”

For years, I had held on to the hope that one day I might reconcile with Andy and Jack. Wishful thinking. But learning that Andy—my oldest friend—was dead still struck hard.

“Did Jack know?”

“Probably not,” Frank said. “Andy turned on everyone who knew him. The family kept it quiet. By then, Jack’s lot had already moved out of Park Hill.”

“We looked up to Andy,” I said. “He was everything we thought we wanted to be.”

“But he couldn’t cope without you.”

“That was his choice,” I said, bitterness creeping in. “I needed him. I needed Jack. But then I got arrested. That settled any doubts they had about me. After that, they didn’t want me anymore.”

“That part was your doing. You wanted out—you made that clear enough. I wanted to hold off, because I wasn’t going to be around, but you forced my hand. If you’d waited, it would have ended anyway… just without the mess it caused.”

I wanted to ask Frank something I had asked myself countless times. The answer mattered.

“Do you think I was to blame for Paolo’s death?”

“Well,” he said, “his family certainly did. According to them, you turned him into a queer and drove him to take his own life. They moved back to Italy afterwards. Not what you wanted to hear, is it?”

“No, Frank.”

“But I knew Paolo loved you. He told me. I told him not to be a sentimental fool. So—do I think you were to blame?” He paused. “No. I don’t. If anything, I’m the one who should carry that. And there’s something else I need to tell you. Something that changes everything.”

“When I came back from holiday, I couldn’t find my notebook—the one with all the names, addresses, telephone numbers. I searched my desk. Gone. A few days later, I needed a file from Ian Thornhill’s desk, and while I was looking, I found the notebook buried under a stack of papers. When I asked him about it, he said he’d needed a number for a case. Which case? I asked. He said he couldn’t remember.

“I checked the notebook—made sure nothing was missing—and noticed a coffee stain on the page for M. There were only three entries there. Two were old informants already inside. The third was Moretti—Paolo.

“I asked Ian again. He said he’d needed Paolo’s number in a hurry and had grabbed my notebook instead of going through the files. It sounded plausible. But something didn’t sit right.

“I checked the records. There had been calls and visits between Paolo’s family and other officers—but none from Ian. Anyone else might have thought nothing of it—that he’d passed the number on to someone else. But I knew better.

“That night, I took him for a drink. Started talking about Paolo’s case. Told him the gaffer was asking questions about the lead-up to the suicide, that I needed to know everything—even anything off the books—so I could cover for everyone if it came to it.

“That’s when he told me.”

“Told you what?”

“A few days before they found Paolo’s body, someone had called asking for me. Ian told him I was on holiday. But the caller said he’d been told to ring me for a number. And the idiot gave it to him—just like that. No questions. And worse than that, Ian reckoned the caller was Andy.”

“What?” I gasped. “Andy didn’t even know him.”

“Let me finish, Harry.”

“After that, I went to Park Hill to find him. It wasn’t difficult. He was with Jack in the Parkway. I told Jack to clear off and dragged Andy outside. That’s what I liked about that place—plenty of dark corners. He looked a mess: bags under his eyes, stubble on his chin, drunk. There was no fight in him. I pinned him against the wall and told him exactly what I thought.”

“What was that?”

“Oh, Harry,” he sighed. “Don’t you see?”

I didn’t.

“The next day, I went to see Paolo’s family. I asked his mother if he’d received any calls before he died. No, she said—she’d tried to intercept them all. But then she let something slip. There had been one call she hadn’t reached in time—when your mate managed to pass on a message, telling Paolo to meet you at your usual place.”

“What place?”

“An abandoned factory.”

“Frank, I can’t believe that. Are you saying—”

“Yes,” Frank said. “I told Andy what I suspected. Paolo had gone out, thinking he was meeting you. But when he got there, it was Andy. And Andy blamed him for everything—for coming between you, for being queer, for making you the same.”

I shook my head, unable to take it in.

But Frank went on.

“He killed Paolo. Pushed him from the edge of the building.”

“No, Frank. That can’t be true. Andy was many things, but not that. I don’t believe it.”

“All Andy said to me that night at Park Hill were two words: Prove it. But that was enough. Enough to know I was right. And he was right too—because he knew I could never make it stick.”

I broke down, and Frank let me.

“It was good to see you again, Harry. I mean that. And I’m sorry things turned out the way they did.”

“Why didn’t you tell me all this years ago?”

“I thought about it. But I knew what you’d do. You’d have wanted revenge.”

He was right.

“There’s an expression—never shit on your own doorstep. I remember saying that to Billy Mason. He did me a favour—a big one—and he waited for the right moment to return it. Took his chance somewhere else… Nottingham, as it happens.”

“What are you saying?”

Frank struggled to his feet.

“I have to go,” he said. “My daughter’s picking me up in five minutes.” He began to hobble away, then paused.

“I meant to ask,” he said. “Are you seeing anyone?”

“Would you believe me if I said I was involved with Jack’s son?”

“Yes,” he said, with a faint smile. “I would.”