Police, Arrests & Suspects Page 17

  “Curmudgeon!” he proclaimed enthusiastically and without any trace of irony. The lapsed Catholic in me immediately began to feel guilty about the word I’d actually just had in mind.

  We finished our tea, thanked the vicar and his wife and were about to set off back down the country lane to our car and onward to medical assistance for my eye, when Jess shook me violently by the arm and nodded in the direction of the graveyard.

  “Isn’t that your arch enemy?”

  I had to stare intently into the distance before I could be sure. He had put on a few pounds since I’d last seen him, but there could be no doubt: the male happily digging out a new plot at the bottom of the churchyard was definitely the man in question. Maybe ‘arch enemy’ was a slight exaggeration, but I certainly didn’t have much time for him after an unhappy encounter a few months back.

  Seeing me looking at him he smiled, put down his spade and started to make his way over towards us. I recognised his gait – I still wasn’t sure whether it was a pimp walk or scoliosis. Either way, it was definitely him.

  I had first met him last February. I had gone to a report of someone acting suspiciously in the deserted pedestrianised town centre late one evening and, as I approached, he had jumped out of the shadows and started shouting aggressively at me for no apparent reason. I was taken by surprise and had automatically reached for my pepper spray. A tense stand-off had then ensued whilst he ranted incomprehensibly at me and I in turn endeavoured to calm him down. I eventually managed to establish that he was sleeping rough, and that he had thought I had come to lock him up and steal the cardboard box that was his makeshift home. I tried to explain that I hadn’t even known he was there until he had jumped out at me, and that I didn’t have the slightest design on his box.

  Twenty minutes later, we were sitting on a low brick wall as he poured out his life story. He apologised for his outburst and admitted that he was ashamed of the person he had become. He had once been an aspiring teacher in a successful school, and then one day, to cope with the stress of the job and to relax, he had tried a reefer of cannabis. From then on, he had happily smoked the drug every night – until, however, his supplier had introduced him to cocaine. Not long after, and in search of a bigger hit, he found himself taking heroin. He revealed that his drug habit had taken years to progress to that stage, but no time at all for his life to quickly unravel. Within six months he had lost everything: his wife, his house, his job, his friends and finally his self-respect.

  Eventually, he had found himself living on a big roundabout on the outskirts of a town down in the south of the country. The land had been covered in trees and he had managed to set up camp, hidden from view and undisturbed by human contact. If you didn’t mind the constant drone of traffic, it was a peaceful enough place to live he explained.

  By day he would venture into the city and do odd jobs for cash. When he wasn’t working, he’d just sit quietly on the town hall steps, watching the world go by. He had become a regular fixture and all the local bobbies would enquire about his health and welfare whenever they saw him. They developed a good relationship with him and the regular beat officers would tell probationers that he was the detective inspector on an undercover operation. He played along with it and each time a new recruit sidled over he’d usually asked them to fetch him a cup of tea. Bemused members of the public would exchange puzzled glances whenever they clocked a young officer scurry away and then return five minutes later to surreptitiously slide a cup over to the homeless man sitting on the stairs.

  Things had gone swimmingly for a number of years until his requests had started to become more excessive. It was fine asking for a cuppa and maybe a pasty, but when he began demanding a three-litre bottle of industrial-strength cider the plug had been pulled on the whole exercise.

  Then one day he had returned to his roundabout home to find that the council had cleared the entire area. The trees had been cut down, his makeshift shelter had gone and all his worldly possessions had disappeared. There had been nothing else for it but to seek pastures new. And that was how he came to be sleeping rough in a cardboard box in the centre of Sandford shopping precinct.

  As he sat there, cold, hungry, unshaven, and with tears in his eyes, I don’t know what it was but something about his story touched me. I told him there were people who could help, but he informed me that he had: ‘been there, done that, bought the T-shirt and then sold it again to buy more drugs’. I told him to wait there before hurrying over to the all-night Tesco superstore.

  I checked my balance at the cashpoint and then went on a mini spending spree. I got a sleeping bag from the camping aisle, a thick jumper, a couple of pairs of thermal hiking socks and a woolly hat and gloves from the clothing section before heading to the food aisles for chocolate bars, sandwiches and a pasty. I even got the security guard to make me some coffee and poured it into the flask I had just bought.

  “So what’s all this in aid of?” queried Al as he handed the flask back to me. I explained that it was for the homeless guy who was sleeping rough in the precinct.

  “What are you bothering with him for?” he continued. “You can’t solve everyone’s problems.”

  “Have you never heard the story of the starfish?” I asked him. When he shook his head, I asked him if he was sitting comfortably and then I began:

  “Once upon a time, there was an old man who lived by the sea. Every morning he would go for a walk on the beach. One morning, after a great storm had passed, he came across thousands upon thousands of starfish that had been washed up on the sand, littering the beach as far as the eye could see. As the sun rose in the sky the creatures began to dry out and die.

  “In the distance, he noticed a small boy approaching who every so often would bend down, pick something up and then throw it into the sea. As he drew level with the young boy, he wished him good morning and asked him what he was doing.

  “Throwing starfish into the ocean. They’ve been washed up and can’t get back by themselves. When the sun gets high, they’ll die unless they are put back into the water.’

  “There are thousands of starfish on the beach. I’m afraid you won’t be able to make much of a difference,’ the old man replied.

  “The boy picked up another starfish and threw it as far as he could into the sea. Turning and smiling at the old man, he said, ‘I made a difference to that one!’”

  Unfortunately, my uplifting story had gone to waste as Al had got bored midway through and had pottered off mouthing: “Yeah, yeah, Grasshopper,” as he went.

  Undeterred, I wheeled my trolley full of booty out through the main doors. I removed all the tags so that he wouldn’t be accused of shoplifting if he ventured into the store and then, feeling full of righteous goodwill, set out to find my starfish. The shopping cart rattled as I pushed it across the pavement – I had one with three wheels and a hoof as usual, causing it to veer off in random directions, but, eventually, after clattering over the broken paving slabs I finally arrived back at where I had left my new friend. He was gone.

  I spent an hour scouring the town for him but he had disappeared off the face of the earth. And I was left with a trolley full of clothes that didn’t fit and food I didn’t want…

  I despondently returned to the supermarket. Al listened to my tale with interest this time before calling over several of the night shift shelf-stackers so they could all hear my story… and then laugh at me, too. When the laughter had finally died away, he told me that someone matching the homeless guy’s description had come into the store about five minutes earlier, used the washrooms and then left.

  “I told him that he couldn’t just use the toilet as they’re for customers only, but he just told me to go and scoop his shit out and give it back to him if I was that bothered about it. He then instructed me to go forth and multiply. He was very angry and aggressive. He looked bedraggled – quite thin and gaunt, with a strange walk. Does that sound like your fella?”

  “It does,” I replied sad
ly.

  “I saw him leave. He got into the back of an old minibus and was driven off.”

  Fast-forward five months and now here he was in the churchyard, having the audacity to look fit, healthy and happy. And after all I’d almost done for him!

  “Ah, have you met Byron?” queried the vicar, conscious of my staring. He waved in the general direction of my nemesis. “I found him homeless on the streets of Sandford in late February when we were on one of our soup kitchen runs. We brought him back here and he’s been working with us at St Augustine’s ever since. He’s a changed man.”

  “Pleased to meet you, Officers.” Byron now approached with his hand outstretched. He had obviously heard the vicar’s comments and was keen to demonstrate how his life had been turned around since that fateful day in February. “I’ve a healthy lifestyle now, too, thanks to the vicar and his lovely wife. I used to be an addict but the only drug I need now is God’s love… and methadone.”

  Clearly, he didn’t recognise me, or he was playing some kind of one-upmanship; subtly pointing out how the offer of a home and meaningful work was better than my contribution of coffee and a sleeping bag. Well, your loss Byron – if that really is your name: it wasn’t just any old sleeping bag – it had a soft, durable polyester cover and eco-sensitive polyfibre filling. Mind you, I concede that it came in a monkey design, but, in my defence, they only had children’s sizes left in stock.

  “I was at a low point in my life when I first came here and…”

  “Yes, very sad,” I interrupted, “but sorry – I’ve got to go.” I pointed at my eye. The pain had now become unbearable.

  Jess, looking slightly startled, thanked the vicar and his wife once more, and wished Mr I’ve-turned-my-life-around all the best before getting up to leave.

  “You’ll need that eye seeing to,” added Byron leaning in, his big hands moving towards my face. I flinched and moved my head out of reach of his grasp. I wasn’t at all keen on having his dirty great paws explore my delicate eye socket.

  “I used to be a biology teacher,” he protested, clearly affronted by my unwillingness to be his crash test dummy.

  “We’ll swing by the ambulance station on the way,” whispered Jess in an effort to placate the beast. He seemed satisfied with that, and I was secretly relieved that I wouldn’t have to resort to any stronger rebuttal of his kind offer – the vicar was looking at me oddly enough as it was. We started to briskly walk down the road and, five minutes later, we were at our car. By now I wasn’t feeling at all well and I was grateful when we pulled up at the ambulance station.

  “… and that, Romeo, is why we always check the pulse first!”

  Steve, one of the paramedics, was in full flow, holding court as we walked into the restroom, working the crowd like Eva Perón. As he finished, his audience burst into fits of laughter.

  “What’s all that about?” I asked.

  “It’s a Shakespearian medical joke – you wouldn’t get it. Star-crossed lovers: he thinks Juliet is dead and… JESUS CHRIST!” Steve had now turned to face me and recoiled in horror when he saw me.

  “Aww, come on, I don’t look that bad!” I protested.

  Actually, I think I probably did look that bad. I was also feeling incredibly unwell. I squinted at him as he came in and out of focus.

  “Hello, Jessie,” beamed Steve catching sight of my colleague standing at the door and seeming to forget all about his patient.

  “I think you’ve got the Jessie there,” she replied, nodding over at me. “It’s only a sting.”

  “Oh, fair play, Jess,” replied Lysa, Steve’s colleague, as she wandered over. “It does look pretty nasty.”

  I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror for the first time: one half of my face was normal, whilst the other half looked like the Elephant Man. The eye itself looked like a tennis ball with a horizontal slit in it. It all looked rather red and angry, too.

  “It was a bee, you said?” clarified Lysa.

  “They can be vicious little things,” added Steve. “We got called to a woman who got a particularly nasty sting while she was out playing golf.”

  I shook my head in dismay, but this was all new to my colleague.

  “Whereabouts was she stung?” queried Jess, walking right into his trap.

  “Between the first and second holes,” he replied.

  She adopted the furrowed brow and mouth-like-a-belly-button expression while she pondered over his answer.

  “We’ll need to get that sting out,” explained Steve, appearing to go back into professional mode, although I wasn’t entirely convinced.

  “Why do I get the impression, Steve, that you’re thirty-five per cent listening to me but sixty-five per cent waiting for an opportunity to insert a pun?”

  “I apologise,” he muttered. “I’ll get Kate to deal with you. It’ll be good experience for her. She’s a student nurse on attachment with us.”

  “Thanks,” I replied. At last he was taking this seriously.

  “Kate!” he shouted loudly, “Come over here and take a look at John’s Jap’s eye.”

  I rolled my remaining good eye in despair.

  A fresh-faced young girl in an immaculate uniform responded, jumping up and making her way over. After the introductions were made, Steve left us to it.

  “So you’re John!” she stated as she stood in front of me, snapping on latex gloves. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”

  “All good I hope,” I quipped cheerily.

  “No,” came the flat reply.

  I glanced over at Lysa, but she purposely averted my gaze and made a tea-based excuse to escape into the kitchen with Jess.

  “It looks like the little blighter has left his bum spike in your eye,” she declared, manoeuvring herself towards me with a set of tweezers. “And he won’t be feeling too good himself either at this moment in time.”

  She repositioned herself and asked me to sit facing the light. “You know, your chances of being killed by a bee are about one in six million.” I’m not sure if the information was intended to reassure me or to make me feel like even more of a baby because I’d winced when she touched my eye.

  She explained that the honey bee has a heavily barbed sting, which is why they are so hard to get out. When I asked her how she knew so much about the subject, she told me that her father was a beekeeper up near Todd’s Plantation. I didn’t wait to find out if she also had a long lost uncle, who had once been a biology teacher before turning into an ungrateful drug addict, and quickly changed the subject.

  “Ta da!” Kate stood triumphantly holding the tweezers aloft, displaying the tiny barb for all to see.

  As Lysa returned with a tray of tea, Steve reappeared holding a can of insect spray which he handed to Jess.

  “Is it good for bees?” she asked, taking hold of the aerosol.

  “No, I think it kills them,” he replied.

  “Very funny,” she commented as she studied the instructions. “It says here: do not spray near eyes.”

  “Just go for the whole body,” he clarified. “You can’t be that accurate!”

  Kate then stepped in and put up a vigorous defence on behalf of the little creatures, but I assured her that it wasn’t necessary as I had no intention of returning to the scene of the crime: the late shift could search for the phantom cows. As we prepared to leave, Lysa gave Jess strict instructions to look after me, telling her to care for me like I was her pet Tamagotchi. Jessica responded with another of her perplexed faces; the reference going over her head by a couple of decades.

  Having finished our cuppas, we got up and began making our way to the exit. Placing my hand on the door handle, I turned around to say my goodbyes and felt another hand rest on mine. I looked over to see Jessica’s horrified face.

  “You’ve only gone and done it again! You fruitcake!”

  Chapter 11

  Let Sleeping Dogs Lie

  “All units, there is a report coming in of a major disturbance in a block o
f flats on the Red Estate; further details to follow.”

  No sooner had the Comms operator finished her broadcast than we raced out to our cars. We had been in the night shift briefing when the call had come through, but we had all been expecting an incident like this since setting foot in the station earlier that evening. It had been a gloriously hot, sunny day and for most people that entailed having a barbeque and a few drinks in the back garden, yet for others, those well-known customers who seem to monopolise our service, it meant drinking to excess and fighting.

  As I drove through the town with sirens screaming, further information came through: knives and baseball bats had been seen. Jess was in the passenger seat and was busy shaking her pepper spray and checking her baton in anticipation. By now the radio was alive with other units calling up, all eager to assist; all travelling from far and wide to descend upon this one location.

  By the time we arrived on scene, officers were already there, hammering on the thick metal doors that led into the foyer of the block of flats. I could hear shouts and cries from within echoing in the stairwell, as well as the sound of windows being smashed and baseball bats bouncing off walls. After what seemed like an eternity, a woman came staggering out of the main door and then fell to the ground. As officers stormed in, Geezer knelt down and began administering first aid. Suddenly, and mere inches from his head, a vacuum cleaner smashed onto the concrete pavement causing dust and pieces of plastic to explode all around him. At first I could only hear Geezer coughing somewhere in the middle of it, but, eventually, as the cloud cleared, I was able to make him and his patient out, both covered in fine grey powder.

  I looked up in time to see a head disappearing into an upstairs window. Jess had seen exactly the same thing. We dashed into the flats and sprinted up the stairs past colleagues dodging blows and grappling with angry residents, while others were making strikes and applying cuffs.